The Mistletoe Legacy
by Elle Morgan-Black
Summary: A chance meeting under the mistletoe awakens a dark curse, as well as Draco Malfoy's dormant obsession with Hermione Granger, but the Ministry's golden girl is more likely to hex him than date him. As his obsession drives him to the brink of madness, Draco knows one thing to be true: he wants her, and he will do anything to have her.
1. Chapter 1: A Chance Meeting

A/N: This story was written for the Twist-mas fest in Dramione Fanfiction Forum and Slytherin Cabal, where we were challenged to twist a normal element of Christmas into something dark, and, well, twisted. My prompt was "mistletoe madness." Please be forewarned that Draco is not an especially nice person, and that this story is dark and contains dub-con and non-con. Please read at your own risk. I am posting just the first chapter for the fest. You can expect updates every few days until the story is complete.

~oOo~

Chapter 1: A Chance Meeting

"_I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched." – Edgar Allan Poe_

Had anyone told him that one day he, Draco Lucius Malfoy, would be trapped under a sprig of enchanted mistletoe with none other than the so-called Brightest Witch of her Age, swotty saviour and mudblood third of Gryffindor's 'Golden Trio' Hermione Granger, he would have thought them mad.

After all, he and Granger had long hated each other. He'd called her a 'filthy little mudblood' at school, and she'd punched him in the face, daring to strike the heir to two of Britain's Sacred 28 magical families. How he'd hated her for that! He'd spent months fantasizing about enacting some form of revenge, some sort of public humiliation to punish her. Somewhere along the line, in his hormone-ridden teenage brain, thoughts of revenge morphed into increasingly dark fantasies in which Gryffindor's mudblood princess was on her knees in the Hogwarts dungeons, tears streaming down her face as he finally shut her up by shoving his cock down her throat. His father would have punished him severely for even thinking of sullying himself with a mudblood, but Draco consoled himself with the idea that if he was going to inflict his sadistic desires on a witch, better a mudblood than a proper pureblooded girl who was entitled to his respect and courteous treatment.

Then the Dark Lord returned, and survival moved to the forefront of his mind, displacing thoughts of dominating a certain bushy-haired know-it-all.

He'd spent time in Azkaban after the war and then on house arrest at his family's ancestral home in Wiltshire after Aurors had stripped it of dark objects and more than a couple of benign but priceless antiques, although he'd never been able to get the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to even investigate _that_ thievery. It had been open season on the Malfoy family after the war, and newly appointed Minister for Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt had been all too happy to raid the Malfoy coffers as "reparations."

Once house arrest ended, he'd not been especially welcomed by post-war magical Britain, and so he'd kept to himself, quietly rebuilding the Malfoy family's businesses and investments through a mix of legal and illegal means. It wasn't easy, but he'd learned from Lucius Malfoy how to lie, cheat, and steal and how to bribe even the most seemingly ethical of Ministry officials and members of the Wizengamot. Everyone had a price, and everyone had a weakness. That was a lesson his father taught him long before his last kiss from a dementor following the war.

Thurlby Wiggenworth's price was pods from the rare Prigger's Porritch plant. The lumpy blue pods were poisonous and volatile and used in a minute handful of obscure potions, most of them illegal. What the head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation wanted with the three precious pods, Draco neither knew nor cared. It was fortuitous then that the forest on the grounds of Malfoy Manor held some of the only known Prigger's Porritch plants in all of Great Britain. Regulation of such a dangerous plant was strict, and the Ministry had made it all but impossible for Draco to even consider cultivating the plants for sale, but that was a problem for some other time. For now he was content to use the pods as payment for Wiggenworth to sign off on a series of documents that would allow him to import rare potions ingredients unavailable in Britain and export the resulting potions without arousing suspicion or incurring steep tariffs.

It was late when he left Wiggenworth's office with a stack of signed import and export certificates tucked safely in his robe pocket. Unlike some of his more openly nefarious contacts, Wiggenworth had a sterling reputation he didn't want besmirched should anyone see him meeting with a former Death Eater. The old codger stupidly thought it was safer to meet at the Ministry after hours, as if Draco didn't already know exactly where the wizard lived. Knowledge was power, knowledge and Galleons, and Draco had plenty of both of those. And one day, one day he would have the power to reclaim the Malfoy family's place at the pinnacle of power in magical Britain, and he would pay them all back in kind, everyone who'd wronged him or his family.

~oOo~

He traversed the Ministry's empty halls in silence, the normal clacking of his dragonhide shoes on the marble floors muffled by a spell, his bribe delivered and next steps on his mind. He'd not been able to get close enough to Shackelbolt to bribe him, which was a pity because having the Minister in his pocket was a natural fit for a Malfoy. Wiggleworth and the lone security guard who was easily bribed with a small bag of Galleons each time Draco needed to slip into the building undetected were the only people Draco had seen in the Ministry this late at night, so he allowed himself the rare luxury of getting lost in his thoughts as he walked.

It was for this reason that he didn't notice the witch coming down the hallway toward him, carrying a stack of books, files, and parchments so high it obscured her vision, until they literally collided with one another. The load she carried tumbled from her arms upon impact. Instinctively, he grabbed her upper arm to steady her and prevent her from falling backwards onto the cold marble floor, even as he barked out a harsh "Watch where you're going!" at her.

"Oh my god! I'm so sorry!" the witch pushed out in a soft but breathy voice, her tone deeply apologetic. "I didn't expect to see anyone here this… Malfoy? Is that you? What are you doing here?"

Draco blinked and finally looked at the witch whose arm he still held in his grasp. She was dressed in plain, shapeless camel-coloured robes, and her brown hair was pulled back in what might have been some sort of style, were it not for the quill sticking out of her hair in the back. A few curls escaped from her haphazard hairstyle, framing a bare face that would never be classically beautiful. But her eyes… her eyes were oddly captivating. Deep brown, framed by long, dark lashes. Her eyes sparked with life, and to his surprise he found himself almost entranced.

"Malfoy? Did you hear me? Let go of me!" she hissed, jerking her arm from his grasp.

And then he recognised her. Like a torrential wave crashing down heavily upon him, he recognised her and realised that for the first time in years, Hermione Granger stood before him with an irritated look on her face. In that moment, memories rushed to the forefront of his mind of her sharp tongue - and just how he'd once dreamed of putting it to good use.

"Well?" she snapped. "Only employees are allowed in the building after hours. Does security know you're here?"

He pulled himself from a momentary stupor at her ire. "I had a meeting that ran late. Nothing to concern _you_," he said snidely, resisting the urge to throw in a 'mudblood' at her for old time's sake. It was a new world, and such terms were verboten now, which was a pity because he had fond memories of how that single word made her eyes flash like lightning and her hair spark with magic in a way that was strangely appealing.

She was standing abnormally close to him, which he thought odd. He folded his arms across his chest, inadvertently brushing his forearm lightly against her breast, making her gasp and lean away from him. Curiously enough, she didn't step back from him as he'd expected. If she wasn't going to get out of his personal space, then he'd move back. It wasn't exactly a power move, stepping back from a witch like that, but he figured he could always call her a mudblood to make up for it. Except that when he tried to move, he found himself somehow rooted to the ground, unable to lift his feet.

A spell of some kind at play, then, he thought.

"What are YOU doing here at this late hour, and why in the name of Merlin are you in my personal space?" he said imperiously. "I realise I am significantly more attractive than that inbred Weasel who sniffs after you, but if you desire that sort of… _personal attention_… you're going to have to make a better effort of it."

He gazed down at her with a hard stare, and something inside of him sparked when she caught his innuendo and glared up at him.

"If I _what_? Don't kid yourself Malfoy. I want nothing to do with your 'personal attention' or anything else related to you or your twisted family!" she fumed.

She reached up with both hands and shoved him, a pointless muggle attempt to push him away from her. This, he thought to himself, was why mudbloods were pathetic and weak - they always automatically went for a muggle solution.

"Release me from your curse then," he said loftily.

Her brow wrinkled in confusion. "I didn't curse you. Don't be daft."

He raised a pale eyebrow at her and then mimicked her movement: touching the front of her shoulders with his fingertips and pushing her backward with more force than she'd used with him. He was rewarded by her obvious struggle to maintain her balance, as well as a shriek of outrage at both his action and the realisation that she couldn't lift her feet from the ground to step away from him. She ranted at him then for running into her and for shoving her, and probably for various and sundry other things, although he quickly lost interest in whatever she was saying and instead chose to glance at their surroundings. Her books, files, and sheets of parchment had scattered in all directions on the floor.

Typical mudblood, he thought, forgetting that she could shrink all that down and put it in her robe pocket. Had she done so, she would not have run into him and he wouldn't be here, stuck to the floor, listening to her bitch about Merlin only knew what.

The hall was deserted. No one else was there at nearly midnight.

Draco sighed deeply and tilted his head upward as she continued to whinge about… honestly, he'd stopped listening and had no idea what her problem was.

Then he saw it.

Mistletoe.

A small sprig of it hung from the ceiling, directly over them.

He'd noticed the beginnings of holiday decor going up in the Ministry lobby when he arrived this evening. Someone was clearly ahead of schedule if they were already stringing up mistletoe around the building.

"Fuck," he breathed out.

It was enough to distract Granger, and she followed his gaze upward.

"Is that..._NO_!" she shrieked, making Draco wince at the shrill sound so close to his ear. "I told them last year - I told _all of them_! It's sexual harassment! It's utter tripe holding people hostage until they kiss just because they happened to walk underneath it! I am filing another complaint with Kingsley over this!"

He wondered if her outrage was based on the principle of enchanted mistletoe, or if she'd been trapped by it elsewhere in the building and forced to kiss some smarmy old wizard. If it was the latter, he couldn't blame her. Magical mistletoe could be either a blessing or a dreadful curse, depending on who was trapped with you or who came to your rescue. A simple _finite incantatem_ wasn't enough to force the plant to release its captives. Without an appropriately passionate kiss, the spell would hold its victims in place for hours on end before eventually dissipating.

Draco did not especially want to kiss the swottiest of all mudbloods - despite being a war hero, he still thought her beneath him, not to mention so absurdly uptight he doubted she could inspire much in the way of passion - but he also had no intention of standing there all night. Simply being in the Ministry hall in the morning would arouse too many suspicions and might lead to questions from Aurors or yet another investigation into his business dealings. For better or worse though, standing there so close to her with his level of irritation rising was bringing back a few of his memories and twisted fantasies from school. It was definitely for the best, he decided, to just kiss her and be on his way before he was tempted to hex her.

"I suppose it's your lucky day, mudblood," he sneered. "I have better things to do than stand here all night waiting for someone else to come round in the morning. Pucker up, Granger, and use your tongue. I like it better that way."

He reached for her then, hoping to kiss her before she could react. From the shocked look on her face, it was clear standing there all night would have been her preferred choice. She shoved at him, trying to push away his hands and turn her face from him, but he was bigger and stronger. He gripped the back of her head and tangled his fingers in her hair. With his other hand, he tried to grab her wrists as she attempted to push him away.

Her lips were clenched tightly together, and she made angry mumbling noises as he pressed his lips to hers. They were pink and plump and softer than he expected, and he found himself annoyed that Granger was too much of a prude to welcome his kiss. She ought to be on her knees thanking him for the privilege! Besides, a mere peck on the lips was not nearly enough to release them.

He bit down hard on her bottom lip, and her resulting shriek of pain went straight to his groin. He was able to thrust his tongue into her mouth then, crushing her much smaller body against his. He wasn't sure what he expected of her physique beneath the baggy robes, so he was pleasantly surprised to discover a slender figure with firm breasts. He'd initially kissed her with the thought of breaking the spell - with the added perk of annoying her as well - but as his tongue ruthlessly plumbed the depths of her mouth, his dick responded accordingly, turned on by the thrill of subduing her, hurting her, and taking what he wanted.

To his immense surprise, she responded to his kiss, even as she struggled in his hold, unaware that her movement and the way her body rubbed against his was only making the kiss more thrilling to him. His hand slid down her lower back to cup her arse, pushing her into him. Granger had a surprisingly fantastic arse, and he couldn't help but wonder what she'd look like naked.

The spell had long-since released them, but he wasn't keen on releasing her. Instead, he moved with her, slipping out from under the enchanted plant to press her up against the cold, hard wall and trap her there. He reached for the hem of her robes and shoved them up slender thighs. To his surprise, Granger was wearing stockings instead of the modest tights he'd expected. Clearly he'd misjudged her at least in part - she wasn't quite the prude he'd expected. He groaned and dug his nails into her soft skin before finally releasing her lips so he could bite at her earlobe and neck.

He'd intended to kiss her and briefly indulge in a bit of his childhood fantasy, but now he couldn't stop. Something within him spurred him on, encouraging him to take what he wanted from her. No one else was around, and she'd quit fighting him. He could fuck her hard and fast up against the wall in the middle of a Ministry hallway, and no one was there to stop him. She was _his_. The very thought was intoxicating. He knew he normally had more self-control than this, but something spurred him on, reluctant to give up the filthy mudblood in his arms.

"STOP IT! Stop!" she cried out, panic clear in her voice as she shoved against him. "Malfoy, let go of me!"

He bit her earlobe and felt her shudder. "You like it, Granger. You kissed me back."

"No! I don't!" It was a gasp. Breathy. He liked the way it sounded.

He forced her legs apart and ground against her. She might be saying no, but if the heat between her legs was anything to go by, she was far more turned on than she wanted to admit. He palmed a full breast and felt her nipple pebble beneath her clothes. Yes, she was definitely turned on, even if she didn't want to admit it.

He shamelessly rutted against her like a man possessed, desperate to have her in a way he rarely desired a woman. She was still protesting, even as she arched into his touch. Somewhere in the back of his mind, it occurred to him that his reaction to Granger was abnormal, but he couldn't be arsed to care. He'd think about it later. For now he was too distracted by the idea of fucking her into the wall.

He didn't see her attack coming. One moment he had his hand on her breast and another up under her skirt and sliding up her thigh, and the next moment, he was blasted across the hall until he stumbled into the opposite wall.

Granger had her wand out, pointed at him as she panted and straightened her clothes.

"_What the hell are you doing?"_ she hissed at him.

He felt oddly pained at her rejection, but a Malfoy did not show weakness. He smoothed his own clothes, his posture rigid. "I freed us both from a miserable night stuck under enchanted mistletoe. Surely you're smart enough to realise I did us both a favour," he sneered.

She _accio_'d her stack of parchments and books and finally realised she was a witch and could shrink said items. The tiny bundle disappeared into her robe pocket.

"You… you _groped_ me! That was _wholly_ unnecessary to release the spell, and you know it! You had no right to touch me like that!"

She had a wild-eyed look of fear and fury about her, but she was still breathless. He could see a red mark forming on the slender column of her neck where he'd sucked the sensitive skin. Her robe was still slightly askew, and he was certain that if he'd been able to get his hand into her knickers, he would have found her wet and wanting. He had to bite back a groan at the thought of touching her so intimately.

Instead, he smirked and casually strolled back toward her, pausing to look her up and down lasciviously. "You know what your problem is, Granger?"

"I really don't care what you think my _problem_ is, Malfoy," she said, raising her chin defiantly at him.

He reached out and stroked a fingertip down her cheek, ignoring the way she flinched away from him. Then he leaned in toward her so he could whisper in her ear.

"Your problem is that you _liked _it. You want me, and we both know it."

She stiffened in response, obviously offended by his observation.

Then she slapped him across the face - hard - and stomped off, leaving him smirking at her retreating form.

This wasn't over. Not by a long shot.


	2. Chapter 2: An Obsession Reborn

A/N: To the anonymous guest who complained about mistletoe stories being cliché: I was going to point out that this is a dark story and isn't your typical mistletoe holiday piece, but I figured it would be a waste of my time. So please just be advised for your future trolling that cliché has an "e" on the end of it. You're welcome. To everyone else, I love hearing your feedback and seeing your thoughts as the story progresses, so thank you for reading, following, and commenting! Happy Christmas Eve to all!

Chapter 2: An Obsession Reborn

Draco was still sporting a hard-on when he returned to the emptiness of Malfoy Manor. Whilst he considered it poor form to wank over an attraction to a mudblood, his body didn't seem to quite get the message. He came hard in his bed that night and again in the shower the next morning to memories of what had been the most exhilarating snog he'd experienced in recent memory. He told himself that he'd gotten her out of his system.

He half-expected to get a howler from her the next morning or even an inquiry from the Auror department. Enchanted mistletoe was perfectly legal, and what he'd done to her was perfectly within his rights as a wizard, but it seemed like the sort of thing she'd get uppity over.

Days passed. Draco worked. He presided over meetings and back room deals. He spent Galleons and made even more. He heard nothing about his mistletoe interlude with Granger, which both intrigued and perplexed him. Perhaps she'd liked it even more than she'd let on if she wasn't sending her little Gryffindor boyfriends after her.

Despite the lack of interaction with her since that occasion, Draco found himself unable to get her out of his mind. Every night when he slept, he was haunted by visions of Hermione Granger. He couldn't escape thoughts of her. It was worse than their time at Hogwarts because now he'd tasted those plump lips, had cupped her pert breasts in his hands, held her small body against his own. He dreamed of her, of bending her over a desk in the Ministry and fucking her without a silencing charm in place so her colleagues could hear her beg and plead for his cock. He dreamed of taking a flogger to her body, the supple leather strips whipping across her smooth skin and leaving red and purple marks in their wake as she screamed, her body a canvas for him to decorate in pain and pleasure. He dreamed of branding her, claiming her, marking her in such a way that everyone would know she was his and his alone.

His desire for her made no sense to him. He'd been with numerous witches in his short life, beautiful women with long legs and big tits, women who oozed seduction and could suck cock like they were born for it. Granger was...not like that. At all. She'd looked more librarian than seductress that night in the Ministry. Blood status aside, she wasn't particularly his type, and in his more sober thoughts he tried to convince himself that she was probably too uptight to be much fun in bed anyway, which made his growing fascination with her all the more perplexing. That then led his mind down a twisted path of deviant fantasies of sexual humiliation and games of bondage and submission in which he dislodged the rather large stick up Granger's arse and somehow turned her into a willing servant of his carnal needs.

In an attempt to get her out of his mind, he even purchased a whore in Knockturn Alley, a brunette with brown eyes who only looked like Granger if he squinted hard enough. He took her brutally and left her bleeding, but it did not sate the twisted desires inside him. He left the brothel angry at himself for wanting a mudblood as he did and angry at the whore for not being the witch he truly wanted.

He drowned himself in firewhisky and dreamless sleep potions and tried to block thoughts of Hermione Granger from his mind. It worked, but only for a few days.

The thoughts, blocked from his subconscious at night, refused to dissipate. They crept into his mind when he sat at the desk in his study, reviewing his investments and contacting suppliers and distributors. He daydreamed of her, of chaining her to his desk and forcing her to sit naked beneath it, servicing him with her mouth whilst he completed his work. He thought about dressing her in a scandalously inappropriate dress and fingering her beneath a table as they dined with some of his business associates. When he saw Potter and his red-haired weasel git of a friend out and about in Diagon Alley, he thought about forcing them to watch as he defiled their mudblood princess. That last daydream was vivid enough that he apparated back to Malfoy Manor and smashed an entire case of elegant crystal stemware as he raged at the possibility that Potter or Weasley - or perhaps both - had already defiled Granger.

As he lay sprawled on the antique oushak rug amidst the detritus of his war against his late grandmother's collection of crystal, he knew he'd reached a breaking point. He had no idea why he'd found himself so utterly captivated by his former school rival, but he knew one thing for certain: he had to see her again, or he would surely go mad.

~oOo~

For a war hero, Granger lived a surprisingly dull life. Draco knew this because he'd abandoned most of his actual work to spend a shameful amount of time learning the ins and outs of her life. It wasn't _stalking_, he told himself. It was more like... 'thorough research.'

Rather than take a high-profile job after the war and a final year at Hogwarts, she'd buried herself in some obscure research division or another in an equally dull Ministry department. She spent most of her days in dusty archives and libraries or in a cramped little office, writing endless reports. It seemed like a waste of her time and ample mind, but then, she'd always been a bit odd with her obsession with books. He thought she'd probably enjoy the Malfoy family library's collection of rare books and scrolls.

She'd dated the youngest male Weasley spawn for a brief time after the war, a thought that made Draco shudder and then made him angry, as that pathetic speckled weasel git had no business putting his hands on Granger! They'd broken up with fairly little drama and appeared to still be friends. She was still close to Potter, who'd married the She-Weasel, and although it was rumoured that Granger and Potter had been a couple, he'd been unable to find any evidence of the fact. He found her apparent discretion admirable. He needed a witch who could keep secrets.

She had donated her time to help Hogwarts rewrite the muggle studies curriculum and had helped the Ministry and Hogwarts revise the information shared with the parents of muggleborn witches and wizards when Hogwarts letters were sent out, although she'd done so with minimal fanfare or publicity. She attended as few official public events as possible, although she had a semi-regular standing lunch date with Potter, and she joined her former Gryffindor classmates for the occasional night out at the Leaky Cauldron or other similar establishments. And if he knew this last bit because he'd followed her around Diagon Alley under cover of a disillusionment charm, well, that was just being thorough, he told himself.

All in all, her post-war life was shockingly unremarkable. Draco considered it an enormous waste of her potential. Granted, there was no shortage of prejudice still at play in wizarding Britain, and Hermione Granger surely faced numerous obstacles in pursuit of a path to greatness. He did not dispute the ingrained prejudice that stacked the odds in favour of purebloods like himself whilst limiting the options for interloping mudbloods, but he did grudgingly admit to himself that she could be so much more than she was.

He knew this, just as he knew that Hermione _Malfoy_ could harness the power of his family's name, Galleons, and connections, merge it with her stellar reputation, and with enough time and effort, not even the sky would be the limit for her.

It was a dangerous thought, the idea of tying himself to a mudblood, of besmirching generations of pureblood lineage. He could not even begin to understand how such an outrageous idea even wormed its way into his mind, unbidden but not entirely unwelcome. But there it was, and there it stayed.

Were his mother still alive, she would surely encourage him to find a suitable pureblood witch from a proper family and take her as a wife. A wife was a valuable asset to a wizard, one that Draco didn't have. The beating his family's reputation took in the war and its aftermath had dealt a harsh blow to his marriage prospects. Pureblood witches from families who'd remained neutral or aligned themselves with the light wanted nothing to do with him. Even witches from darker families feared him for he was Voldemort's youngest Death Eater, the only teenager given a place in the inner circle. Many historically dark families were trying to rebuild themselves post-war, and aligning with the Malfoy heir was a sure way to draw exactly the wrong sort of attention to themselves.

But Granger... Hermione. His lovely little mudblood. It was a pity she had such dirty blood, for she would have made an ideal wife: her credentials and reputation in the light were unimpeachable, and her intelligence unquestionable. Unlike most pureblood witches, she'd not been groomed from birth to serve a husband, but she was smart enough to learn quickly what was expected of her.

Perhaps it was the amount of alcohol he'd consumed since the mistletoe incident in the Ministry, or the truly shameful amount of time he'd spent stalking - er, thoroughly researching - Hermione Granger, but the more he dwelled on the idea of taking her as a wife, the more desirable it became. No, she wasn't a pureblood, but their children could be married off to purebloods, thus making his grandchildren pure. It would take generations to breed out her muggle blood, but it would be worth it for her intelligence and the potential to elevate the Malfoy name. Granger had connections, important ones. Her reputation would open doors to him that he couldn't access on his own, no matter how many Galleons he had. Marriage to Granger would even give him entre to the Minister for Magic's office. Marrying her would quite possibly be the fastest way to bring the Malfoy family (limited though it was) back to power.

Plus she was attractive enough in her own unique way, and there was also that issue of his complete inability to get her out of his mind. He was mildly concerned that he was going to get a cramp in his hand from incessantly wanking over her. In short, he was obsessed with her, obsessed in a way he'd _never_ experienced with another witch.

There was, of course, that small issue of her hating him, but she _had_ kissed him back that night under the mistletoe, and she'd let him get surprisingly intimate with her before she'd blasted him back with her wand. She had at least some measure of attraction toward him - it was undeniable. Successful marriages had been built on less.

He could start slow, sending her flowers and an apology for getting carried away beneath the mistletoe, followed by an invitation to tea or lunch, where he could offer up the Galleons he'd saved with his ill-gotten import/export certificates to fund some pet cause of hers. It would give him an excuse to interact with her, and eventually he could ask to court her in the pureblood tradition. She would probably like being treated the way he'd treat a proper pureblood witch. It would send the message that he valued her, that she was a precious gem. Yes, he decided, he would pursue her and make her the next Lady Malfoy.

~oOo~

The day after he made the momentous decision that pursuing Granger was a wise idea, she appeared in his home.

He was in the library, cup of tea in hand as he thumbed through books on pureblood etiquette and tradition. He thought it wouldn't hurt to have a few selected in advance that he could give her.

And then, there she was. One of the library doors creaked open, and in walked the object of his obsession.

Hermione Granger.

She was wearing a fitted black dress that showed off her figure, and a higher pair of heels than he'd ever seen on her. She looked… surprisingly sexy. He was speechless.

She walked into the centre of the library and turned in a slow circle, taking in the seemingly endless rows of books.

"So _this_ is the famed Malfoy Library," she said after a moment.

Then she smirked at him. "I have to admit that I'm impressed."

He swallowed, trying to force words from his mouth. Dozens of questions danced on the tip of his tongue like 'Why are you here?' and 'How did you get past the wards?'

He cleared his throat. "You _should_ be impressed. This is the largest private library in Britain, built by generations of Malfoys. There are more first editions here than in Hogwarts."

"Now why am I not surprised? Only the best for a Malfoy, right?"

He smiled at her. "Absolutely."

He downed the rest of his tea and placed the teacup back in the saucer before he stood and crossed the room toward her.

"If you wanted to see my library, all you had to do was ask, you know."

She pouted. "That's not true. You wouldn't have let me in. You think I'm a filthy mudblood."

"No! No, that's not true!" he insisted.

She did not look like she believed him.

"Okay, fine. Perhaps when we were children, and I was young and parroting whatever bullshite came out of Lucius's mouth, I might have thought that, but I don't. Not anymore."

In truth, he _did_ still think of her that way - old habits die hard after all. It was just that he'd decided her blood status was something he could now overlook, but he didn't think she'd appreciate that distinction.

She walked closer to him, her hips rolling in a ridiculously sexy strut that made him want to slam her against the nearest bookcase and fuck her senseless. She stopped directly in front of him and arched her eyebrow at him before speaking.

"Do you think I'm filthy now?" she cooed, in a flirty voice that made his cock stand at attention.

"Only in the best possible ways, Granger," he shot back, enjoying this unexpected banter. Had he known she could be this charmingly flirtatious and sexy, he would have pursued her ages ago.

She leaned in toward him, and he thought for a precious second she was going to kiss him. Then she turned on her heel and wandered down an aisle of books, her fingertips lightly brushing over the spines of books as she walked.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

She paused and turned back to him. "I'm exploring. I want to see what you have here."

"I'll give you a tour," he offered.

"I think you just want to get in my knickers."

He blinked in surprise at the forward remark.

"I thought that was obvious that night in the Ministry. I've never been so thankful for mistletoe before," he admitted, even as he wondered why he was being so honest with her. It appeared his Slytherin cunning had deserted him.

She didn't respond, and he thought perhaps he'd have to be more blunt with her. Granger wasn't like most witches.

"I haven't been able to get you off my mind since that night," he admitted.

She looked over her shoulder at him with another smirk, and he thought she was pleased to know she'd captured his attention.

"Is that so?"

"I was going to owl you, to invite you for tea."

"How proper."

"Is it so hard to believe that I want more than just getting into your knickers?"

She snorted. "Yes, actually it is, Malfoy."

"Draco."

"What?"

"Call me Draco."

She smiled and repeated his name, and it sent a shiver across his body.

"I feel I've been remiss in my duties as a host. Let me get you a glass of wine, and then I'll give you a proper tour of the library. How does that sound?" he offered.

Her smile was broader this time. "I'd like that. You pick the wine though. I don't know what you have in your cellar. I'm sure your taste in wine is far better than my own."

He turned and called to his personal elf, Tippy.

"Bring us a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild, 1990, and two glasses," he said as soon as the little elf popped into view.

"Yes master. Is master expecting a guest?"

"Yes, she's already here, she's-" at this Draco turned to introduce Granger to his elf, remembering suddenly that she had some sort of odd attachment to the little creatures.

The row of books was empty. His clever little bookworm had obviously wandered off in search of rare books.

"Never mind. Just bring the wine."

The elf popped out of sight, and Draco turned down the aisle to find the witch he desired. But she wasn't on the next aisle, or the one after that. He cast _hominem revelio_, thinking perhaps she'd cast a disillusionment charm to hide from him as a prank.

He found nothing. He even called out to her but got no response.

The elf returned and arranged the wine and glasses on a table near the large picture windows.

"Tippy, did you see Miss Granger?" he asked, his frustration mounting at his inability to find her.

"Miss Granger?"

"Yes. About this tall, curly brown hair, wearing a black dress." He gestured to show the witch's approximate height.

"Here?"

"Yes _here_, you ignorant little beast! She was here. She was JUST here a moment ago!"

The elf twisted his spindly fingers in the tea towel he wore, looking nervous.

"What?" Draco spit out, feeling frantic at the witch's sudden disappearance. Had she accidentally touched a book that cursed her based on her muggle blood? Had something in the manor harmed her?

"Master, no one has come to the door or passed through the wards," Tippy said cautiously.

"She was _here_! I saw her with my own eyes! I spoke to her!"

"Master, Tippy has been serving the Malfoy family since Master Abraxas was a boy. Tippy is tied to the Manor and the Malfoys. Tippy knows when anyone comes or goes here. There is no one else here - just you and the elves."

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Draco knew that the elf would not - could not - lie to him. And Tippy was right - as the oldest and most senior of the family elves, he knew Malfoy Manor better than any living creature. Yet Draco knew what he'd seen and what he'd heard.

"Will Master be needing anything else?"

"No, no, that will be all," he said dismissively, waving the elf away with his hand.

Draco turned in confusion and looked around him. He'd spoken to her. Hermione Granger had been here. He was certain of it.


	3. Chapter 3: Close Encounters

Chapter 3: Close Encounters

Draco owled Granger the next morning, sending her an elegant bouquet of rare orchids from the manor's greenhouses. The note read simply,

"_Enjoyed our conversation, but it ended too soon. Owl me. -DM"_

He waited impatiently all day for a response, but none came.

He attempted to contact her at the Ministry, but she had no assistant, and the department secretary informed him that her calendar was booked solid for the foreseeable future, something he was certain was a lie.

He owled her again, inviting her to meet him at a quaint tea room just off Diagon Alley. He needed to see her, and he wanted to know exactly how she'd gotten past his wards and then slipped out again and why she'd ignored the flowers he'd sent her. He again got no response, which he found wholly unacceptable, and he blasted an entire large oak tree from the manor grounds in his anger. With vicious swipes of his wand, he destroyed the wood, slicing and hacking at the felled tree until it was shredded into small chunks and he was panting from exertion.

Why would she sneak into his home and flirt with him and then disappear like that and refuse his attempts at contact? It made no sense to him. His elf had been adamant Granger had not been there that night in the library, but Tippy was dreadfully old and could have been mistaken. To accept that Tippy was correct meant that he had somehow hallucinated or imagined the entire encounter with Granger, and that was… disturbing, to say the least. No, he decided, it was far more likely that Granger had played some twisted trick on him. In the past, someone getting the drop on him like that would have left Draco burning with rage and a desire for revenge, but he also found himself experiencing a sense of admiration at her surprising display of cunning. The way she'd taken advantage of his attraction to her was downright diabolical, and that made him all the more eager to meet with her again.

Before he could arrange that meeting, Granger slipped back into his home.

He was in the drawing room, standing in the very spot where his psychotic aunt had tortured her. He wasn't sure why he was there. There were whole rooms of his home he avoided because of bad memories from the war. He'd not been in this room in years, but he'd felt oddly drawn to it, and now as he stood in the center of the room, he could still hear Granger's screams from that day. It had been horrible in the moment, and dreadful afterward when the Dark Lord subjected them all to the _cruciatus_ curse for allowing Potter and his minions to escape.

But after the fact, when he was high on pain potions to speed his recovery, he dreamed about those screams. He dreamed about her making that same noise as he held her down on the drawing room floor and fucked her. He blamed the dream on the mix of potions Snape had given him, but he dreamed it more than once before the war's end. It was a sick dream, he knew that. He was fucked up for even daring to associate her screams of agony with sex, although somehow he'd thought at the time that Lucius might not mind if his heir defiled himself with a mudblood if he could make her scream like that.

He could hear her screams again now.

And then she was there, casually walking through the door as if she'd done it a thousand times.

Somehow it didn't surprise him that she was there.

"You haven't changed a thing in here, have you?" she observed as she walked into the room. She was wearing a flowing knee-length dress in a rose pink colour. She'd worn a jumper in a similar shade the last time she'd been in this room, when Bellatrix made her scream.

"The elves cleaned up the broken chandelier, but that was it. No one comes in here. My mother had plans to redecorate and remodel when the war was over, but it never happened," he said softly.

"You could still remodel. I'm sure you've the Galleons for it."

"Would you like that? If I remodeled?"

"What would you do with this room? Would you tear it down altogether?" she asked instead, walking slowly around him.

"Would you like that?" he asked, his voice hoarser than he would have liked.

"Perhaps. Do you come in here often?"

He shook his head.

"What do you think about when you're in here?" she asked in a whisper.

"You."

"You flatter me."

"It was a rather memorable experience."

"Yes, I suppose it was. You looked as if you might sick up on yourself when she tortured me. I thought you might do something. Call for help. Save me in some way."

"She would have killed you. Killed me. Killed us all." He was ashamed admitting it, but it was true.

Hermione stopped in front of the bloodstain on the carpet.

"Yes, I suppose she would have. She was rather unstable, Bellatrix that is. Do you think about her torturing me?"

He nodded. "I hear your screams."

She leaned in close to him, so close he could feel her breath on his ear. "Do you like it when I scream?"

He stepped back from her and stared at her wild-eyed at the way she'd honed in on his past twisted dreams.

"I bet you could make me scream now, couldn't you?" she asked in a seductive voice.

He watched in stunned silence as she sank gracefully to the floor in front of him, bracing herself with her hands as she leaned back, her legs bent at the knee.

"I was right here, wasn't I? Before?"

He nodded as sweat beaded on his forehead. Granger hadn't responded to his owl. How was she here? And like _this_?

She slid her hand up her thigh, pushing the dress up as she went. He swallowed hard when he saw the lace top of her stocking and the creamy thigh above it. The hem of her dress moved higher, and he audibly groaned as he caught sight of virginal white satin knickers. There was no way Granger was a virgin, not the way she spread her legs so prettily, but the innocence of her white knickers was captivating.

The juxtaposition of his memories of her torture and the vision of her on the floor now with her legs spread was twisted and _wrong_, and he wasn't sure what it said about him that the sight of her on the floor like that now made his cock twitch in his pants. Thoughts swirled in his mind, visions of ripping off those white knickers and fucking her until she screamed and cried and begged him for more.

Surely she wasn't here, in his home, like _this_. Why would she be after she'd so thoroughly ignored him?

"You're not real. You're not really here," he whispered, pressing his palms to his eyes. He began to wonder if perhaps he was losing his mind.

"Why would you think that?"

He opened his eyes. Granger was still there, on the floor with her legs spread and a hurt look on her face.

"Don't you want me, Draco?"

He breathed out a quiet "fuck" and rubbed his eyes again and then blinked. She was still there.

"Of course I want you. Fuck, you have no idea how much I want you. But you're _not real_. Granger wouldn't be here, with me, not like this."

"What are you talking about? Why wouldn't I be? I thought we'd already established that only the best will do for a Malfoy. Please Draco… please touch me," she pleaded.

He took a shaky step toward her, and then another. If he touched her, if he could feel the warmth of her flesh beneath his fingertips, that would prove she was real, wouldn't it? He had to adjust his trousers when he caught sight of her knickers again, only this time there was a telltale wet spot on them. He couldn't wait to smell her, taste her arousal on his tongue.

The tapping of an owl against the window momentarily distracted him.

"You should see to that owl," she whispered.

"It'll wait."

"Take care of it, and then touch me."

He turned and opened the window, muttering under his breath in irritation. The bird nipped at his finger and shifted into a more comfortable position on his windowsill, a sure sign it would wait for a response. To his immense surprise, the letter was from Hermione Granger. Surprise, surprise. She'd finally decided to grace him with a response to his invitation. Even more surprising, she was willing to meet him for tea.

"You know, you could have replied earlier," he tossed over his shoulder. "Or do you get some sick thrill out of making me wait?"

When Granger didn't respond, Draco turned around with a sigh.

The drawing room was empty.

He drank heavily that night, not bothering to respond to her letter, if there even was a letter. Perhaps the letter was a figment of his imagination, just like Granger's appearance in his home. Except that he couldn't bring himself to genuinely believe that he'd hallucinated the entire experience.

It wasn't until he saw it on his bedside table the next morning, still there, that Draco sent a response back.

~oOo~

He met Granger at the Rosa Lee Teabag two days later. He arrived first and strategically positioned himself in the back of the room where he could watch her enter. She arrived precisely three minutes before their appointed meeting time, a bit breathless as if she'd walked briskly to avoid being late. She was dressed in a burgundy jumper and brown skirt, and just like that night in the Ministry, her hair was pulled loosely back from her face. She didn't seem to be using any cosmetics or beauty charms, but the cold weather had left a rosy blush on her cheeks that he found incredibly alluring.

He couldn't pinpoint what it was about her, but being in her presence somehow soothed something inside of him. Unfortunately for him, she looked less than soothed about being there as she spotted him in the back and reluctantly walked toward him. He stood when she approached the table and pulled out her chair for her, as was proper. She seemed uncomfortable at this gesture, which was no surprise, as Weasley wasn't exactly a shining example of traditional wizarding etiquette. Still, she sat without making a fuss and said nothing as he cast a discreet notice-me-not charm around them to avoid prying eyes and nosy parkers.

He'd deliberately chosen a table in the back in the hopes that they would not attract attention, and because he felt safer with his back to the wall and his face toward the door. Ever since the war, he'd taken care to never put himself in a vulnerable position where someone could sneak up on him. Yet Granger had apparently done just that by sneaking into his home undetected, and it bothered him.

She glanced around her after she sat down, and he wondered if having her back to the tearoom door made her nervous as well. He could see the tip of her wand under the cuff of her jumper, and the knowledge that she had it so readily accessible implied a lack of trust that he found hurtful. Still he supposed it was another habit formed during the war that had died hard with her. He kept his own wand in a holster on his forearm for quick access as well. It was another thing they had in common, but he doubted she'd appreciate him mentioning anything war-related, given the slightly pinched look on her face.

"Well, Malfoy, I can't say I expected an owl from you," she said as she sat down, not bothering to comment on the pleasant aroma of the tea he'd carefully selected or the array of scones and finger sandwiches he'd ordered as he'd been unsure what foods she would like best.

It was almost laughable that she'd sneaked into his home twice now but somehow didn't expect him to contact her. He would have commented on it, but he was more focused on her use of his surname.

"Draco," he said firmly as she eyed the food.

"Pardon?"

"Draco. My name is Draco."

She looked at him strangely. "Alright," she said slowly.

"Call me Draco."

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him. "Why? We aren't friends. We've never been friends. And the last time I saw you, you _molested_ me. We're hardly on a first name basis."

"Because you were calling me Draco before, and I don't appreciate you going back to my surname as some means of distancing yourself because you're embarrassed about what happened between us," he said stiffly. This was not going at all how he'd expected. Where was the flirtatious witch who'd teased him so?

"What happened between us?" she spit out in a quiet voice. "What happened between us was you taking advantage of someone's inane decision to put 'sexual harassment in leaf form' all over the seat of government. And I have never called you by your first name. I'm sure if I did, your pureblood ancestors would roll over in their graves."

He frowned at her. His memories of her calling him 'Draco' at his home were_ so_ vivid that they couldn't possibly be a dream. Or perhaps she wanted to be coy and discreet. After all, they were in a public place, and he knew from his research into her life that she valued her privacy.

"My ancestors are immaterial. They're dead and not really in any position to complain."

She looked skeptical. "Oh, I'm sure you've at least one or two portraits who'd scream about you allowing someone like me to call you by your first name."

He smirked at that. "More than one or two, but portraits are easily silenced when threatened with turpentine."

A look of surprise flashed across her face at the idea of him taking turpentine to portraits of long-dead Malfoys. Then she smiled - just a hint of a smile - before pressing her lips together firmly. He wanted her to smile, really smile at him. In his mind, he'd somehow hoped that the Granger who'd visited his home would be the one who showed up for tea. He pictured her walking in with a bright smile on her face that would melt into a look of bliss after she sampled the rosemary biscuits. They were a particular favourite of his that he thought she'd love as well.

Instead she sat there stiffly and had yet to pour tea for either of them, even though the teapot was closest to her. Perhaps she didn't want to be seen as serving a pureblood former Death Eater in public. The idea rankled him, but he put it out of his mind and poured tea for her instead.

"I think you'll enjoy this particular Earl Grey. It's exclusive to the magical world - the muggle version is derived from this one but isn't nearly as rich and flavourful. It's divine with the rosemary biscuits," he offered.

She eyed her teacup with suspicion and then stared at him as if she found him to be a rather curious specimen of magical creature she didn't quite understand. After a few uncomfortable moments of silence, he sighed.

"Granger, I realise you weren't raised in the magical world, but here it's considered impolite to meet someone for tea and then refuse to eat or drink anything."

She slid her wand out and cast a few detection charms over the contents of the table before apparently deciding it was safe to consume. Draco was highly offended and tried to tamp down his ire.

"Do you really think I'd tamper with your food? Or poison you in a public place like this?"

"Considering that I never expected to receive an owl from you inviting me to tea, I felt it was best to be safe, rather than sorry. Constant vigilance, as Alistair Moody used to say," she said primly before taking a sip of her tea. She drank it with just a splash of milk, no sugar.

"If I wanted to kill you, you'd be long-dead. I don't need tea to do it," he said, trying not to clench his teeth in irritation.

She looked surprised at this pronouncement, and the slight look of fear that she quickly tamped down was oddly satisfying. He understood why Lucius liked to scare others - it was a heady feeling. And yet somehow with her, it felt all wrong.

An awkward silence descended on the table as they both sipped their tea. Draco ate two biscuits and watched her nibble at a finger sandwich. She'd only eaten a few bites before she put it down and sighed at him.

"Alright, I'll bite. You called this meeting, what is it you want, Malfoy?"

"Draco," he repeated.

She sighed again. "Fine. Draco."

Just as it had in the library, the sound of his name on her tongue sent shivers down his spine, despite her irritated tone.

"I want to know to what kind of game you think you're playing."

"What… _game_? If this is about my report on the need to increase regulations on the import of magical creatures, let me assure you that everything in there is accurate."

He frowned again. "That's...no. This has nothing to do with your report on magical creatures, although I'd be interested to read your recommendations."

She looked both surprised and somewhat flattered by his interest.

"Since when do you care about importing magical creatures from outside the UK?"

"The Malfoy family business includes the manufacture and distribution of potions, and as you know, there is a market for potions ingredients, some of which come from animals, be it occamy eggshells, or bat wings or anything else."

"Oh. I… I hadn't realised," she admitted. It was the closest he'd come to seeing Hermione Granger admit she was wrong about something, and he liked it. "I'd be happy to owl you a copy of my report."

"Thank you. I look forward to reading it."

She narrowed her eyes at him and then aimed her wand at his face.

"You aren't Draco Malfoy," she said in a low voice.

"Excuse me?!" He sat back in his chair, shocked at the sudden change in her. He was tempted to draw his own wand on her but did not particularly want to get into a public duel with Potter's golden girl.

"Malfoy isn't polite to me, and he doesn't invite me to tea. He calls me names like 'mudblood' and believes he's better than everyone else," she spit out.

He was both offended and thoroughly confused at Granger's statement. The witch ran hot and cold, and he was getting whiplash interacting with her, never certain which Granger he'd see. He wanted the flirty one back, the one who teased him and showed him her pretty knickers. He tried hard not to think about Granger's knickers. It was a wholly inappropriate thing to ponder whilst said witch had him at wand-point.

"Tell me something only Draco Malfoy would know," she demanded.

"You've got a fantastic arse, and I'm not sure why you hide it under such plain clothing." He said it without thinking, his mind going back to their kiss under the mistletoe.

"I - _what_?"

"You heard me. We were trapped under the mistletoe, I kissed you, and you've got a fantastic arse, which I know because I've touched it. You were also wearing stockings with lace at the top under your robes. You also slapped me in third year. Does that convince you that I'm really _me_?"

She glared at him but grudgingly withdrew her wand.

"Fine. So you're Draco Malfoy."

"Really, Granger, we touched on the mistletoe thing when you first arrived. Do keep up," he said in a lofty voice before taking a sip of his tea to hide his annoyance with her.

"You know, I asked you then and you never answered - what were you doing there so late at night?" she replied, arching an eyebrow at him. He wondered if all Gryffindors were this suspicious, or just her.

"What were _you_ doing there?" he shot back.

"I work there, Malfoy."

"Draco."

She sighed heavily. "Fine. _Draco_. I work there."

"I find it hard to believe the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures requires their researchers to work quite so late. Is our fair Minister aware of how his department head is abusing his subordinates?"

"There's a lot of work to be done, and I-. Wait. How do you know where I work?"

He shrugged. "I'm a businessman, and the Ministry's actions affect my bottom line. I make it my business to know who works where in the Ministry."

"So what were you doing there?"

He frowned, irritated with her prodding. Why couldn't she just let it go? Then again, he pondered, her interrogation skills would be valuable if her questioning was done in his favour. He could already picture her coming home to him each night with important tidbits of information she'd gleaned at the office.

"I had a meeting."

"At midnight?" she scoffed.

"Well before then. I was on my way out when I ran into you."

"With whom were you meeting?" she challenged.

He smirked in response. "You'll get nothing from me - I don't share private business information with just anyone."

"Legitimate business at the Ministry is conducted during normal business hours," she said primly.

He leaned back in his chair. "And that's where you're wrong, not to mention why you'd have been a terrible Slytherin. There are plenty of people who would prefer to conduct perfectly legitimate business outside of normal hours or channels when it involves Lucius Malfoy's son, the Dark Lord's youngest Death Eater."

It was impossible to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Granted, his business with Wiggenworth was more on the questionable/illegal side, but the fact of the matter was that Wiggenworth wouldn't want him there during the day when someone might see them together.

Granger opened her mouth and then closed it again without speaking, and a sympathetic look crossed her face.

"Oh. I hadn't...you know, it really is not proper for someone at the Ministry to be treating you like that," she said softly.

He'd forgotten about her soft side, her bleeding heart for lost causes. He didn't exactly appreciate her thinking of him as a lost cause or as one of the downtrodden, but he did rather like having her sympathy directed at him.

"You paid your debt to society and shouldn't be denied access to your government."

"You always were a bleeding heart, weren't you?" he observed.

She looked offended. "There's nothing wrong with having compassion."

"No, I suppose not. I'm just not used to it."

It was a weakness he didn't like to admit, but that was apparently the right thing to say because she looked very concerned. He thought if he'd been a Gryffindor, she would have hugged him. Slytherins did not hug, at least not in his world.

They both sat in awkward silence again, Hermione eating and refusing to meet his gaze as he watched her. She was rather pretty, now that he thought about it. How he'd thought her plain when he ran into her at the Ministry was beyond him. She wasn't beautiful in that stunning, head-turning sort of way his mother had been, but she had a natural grace and attractiveness all her own. Her hair had always been a bit hopeless, but she'd gotten better at managing it as she'd grown up, and he liked the idea of tangling his fingers in her curls. Her brown eyes were so expressive and warm, even when she glared at him. She had a faint dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose that he'd never noticed before, and he wanted to trace them with his fingertip and then kiss the tip of her nose. Her figure was slight and regrettably too much of it was hidden from view. He normally preferred witches who were tall and statuesque, with absurdly long legs and large tits, but somehow Granger's petite physique appealed to him.

"You're staring at me. Why?" she observed in a sharp voice.

"I don't know what to make of you, Granger."

She looked taken aback. "How do you mean?"

"You imply that I might have spiked your food with a potion and yet feel sorry for me all in the span of one afternoon tea. You kiss me back but then blast me with your wand. At times you act around me as if I'm a spiky bush and might fling needles at you at the slightest provocation, and then you show up in my home all smirks and flirty smiles. I've gotten less whiplash playing quidditch than I've gotten from you."

She had a strange look on her face. "What are you talking about? Showing up at your home?"

He cast a _muffliato_ to give them privacy, annoyed with himself for not doing so sooner.

"Don't be coy. We both know you were there. I want to know how you did it - Malfoy Manor has some of the oldest and strongest wards in Britain, after Hogwarts, and I never felt them drop. How did you do it?"

She leaned back from him, confusion clear in her expression. "I haven't been to Malfoy Manor since the war, when we were caught by snatchers. Frankly, I don't have the best memories of your home, and I'm not exactly in a rush to go back."

Her denial infuriated him.

"Stop playing games with me!" he hissed angrily. "You were there. In my library. And in my drawing room. I saw you. Fuck, Granger, I _spoke_ to you! I realise I'm not exactly well-liked these days, so from a security standpoint, I'd really like to know how you got through my wards."

"Malfoy, I don't know how many ways I can say this: I was not at your home. I've not been at your home in years!"

He rubbed at his eyes in frustration, thoroughly confused by her response and by his reactions to her. Since she walked into the restaurant, he'd felt the urge to touch her, hold her, possess her. He couldn't understand it or explain it, but it only grew stronger the longer she sat across from him, so close yet so far away.

He opened his eyes again and blinked at her. To his surprise, Granger was leaning forward toward him with a rather "come hither" look on her face. She fidgeted with the neckline of her jumper, tugging it downward to reveal a bit of cleavage. The juxtaposition to how she'd been moments ago was shocking.

"Why are you being like this?" he asked.

"Like what?"

"Like_ this_. Why the constant change in moods? Is this some sort of sick game? Some warped means of revenge because I was a prat in school?"

"Do you like twisted games? You seem to be the type," her voice dropped lower in a way that shot straight to his cock.

He stared at her, momentarily unable to form words at the thought of all of the incredibly twisted games he'd love to play with her.

"Hello? Malfoy?"

A feminine hand snapped fingers in front of his face, and he blinked, sitting back in his chair. His vision blurred for a moment, and he rubbed at his eyes again.

When he opened them, Granger was still seated across from him, but her jumper was modestly covering everything he wanted to see, and the seductive expression on her face was gone, replaced with a mixture of concern and annoyance.

"What?" he snapped in frustration.

"You just...where did you go just now?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You had this blank look on your face, like you weren't hearing anything I said."

"I heard you," he spat back. "I heard you teasing and flirting and asking about twisted games before going back to your public prude act, and I'm sick of it, Granger!"

She leaned away from him then, going so far as to push herself back from the table, a look of confusion on her face.

"What are you talking about? I...all I said was that I'd not been at Malfoy Manor since that night during the war, when Harry broke the taboo and we were caught by Snatchers," she said quietly. "That was one of the _worst _nights of my life, and I have no desire to ever go back there. And as for my supposed 'prude' act, I'm not sure how else you expect me to be! I certainly wasn't _flirting _with you!"

There was an odd pressure in his head, as if his brain could not reconcile the two Hermione Grangers he'd experienced. The logical, rational part of him was fairly convinced that the uptight, perpetually annoyed Hermione Granger who snapped at him and didn't trust him was the real thing. Yet something inside of him could not seem to let go of the Granger he'd seen in his home. He'd kissed Hermione under the mistletoe, kissed her, and felt her respond to him with true passion, and _that_ \- that had been real too, hadn't it?

"Look, Malfoy-"

"Draco."

A sigh.

"Draco," she repeated. "You're...you're not yourself."

His head was beginning to hurt, and his body felt overheated and uncomfortable.

"They say that dark magic can do that to people, that it can affect them in all manner of ways, and maybe… maybe you need to see a healer," she said.

"I'm not crazy, Hermione," he spat back, dragging out her name and savouring the syllables on his tongue. It was the first time he'd called her by her given name, and he wished it had been under better circumstances.

An unreadable expression crossed her face then, and he desperately wished he was better at legilimency.

"You… you sent me flowers," she said slowly.

"You just now figure that out? 'Brightest witch of the age' my arse." It was hard to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Clearly she had no idea just how valuable those orchids were. "Flowers" indeed!

"Why?" she asked.

"Why what?"

"Why would you send me flowers?"

"Because you came to my home. You were in my library. You… damn it, Granger! I was there, and so were you! Then you left, and I sent you flowers because I wanted to continue our conversation!" he hissed. A quick glance around the tea room reassured him that the magic around the table held and no one was staring at them.

"I don't know what is wrong with you, but for the last time:_ I was not at your home_. I have no desire to BE at your home! If that's all you wanted to discuss today, then you've wasted your time, and mine."

She stood them and dropped her napkin in her empty seat.

He stood as well. "Don't go."

Her wand slipped into her hand, and her posture was defensive.

"Look, obviously you need help, and I'm not the witch for that job. Go to a healer. St. Mungo's has some great people who can help with post-war trauma. But kindly leave me out of whatever all of _this _is," she said, waving a hand in his general direction.

She turned on her heel and stomped away, and everything in him cried out to stop her, grab her, hold her, and never let her go.

~oOo~

Rosa Lee Teabag is semi-canon, from the Lego Harry Potter games, and a spiky bush is a real plant, covered in 1st year Herbology. As always, thank you for continuing to read, follow, and comment. I love seeing your thoughts as this story progresses!


	4. Chapter 4: Holiday Visits

Happy new year to everyone! Thank you so much for continuing to read and follow along with this story and for sharing your thoughts with me. Some lines are crossed in this chapter, so I'm eager to see what you think about Draco now, as my beta described it as 'hot but messed up.' Beta love to Tassana Burrfoot.

Cheers,

Elle

Chapter 4: Holiday Visits

Regardless of what Granger - no, Hermione - said, Draco was certain she'd been there in his home. When he returned that evening to Malfoy Manor, he carefully extracted memories of her visits in his library and drawing room and bottled them in an elegant glass phial. He labeled it and sent it to her by owl, without a note. Surely, he thought, she would view the memories and then return to him.

Except that she didn't. And then he worried: did she pitch in the rubbish bin without watching it? Did she even have access to a pensieve? For days he waited for a response or for her to turn up somewhere in his home, but it was all for naught. And the longer he waited, the more desperate he became.

If she could slip into his home, then turnabout was fair play, wasn't it? He thought so. Besides, he needed to see her, and he needed to see where she lived. Something, some indefinable _thing_ inside of him compelled him to do it.

It was surprisingly easy to locate Granger's home. Unlike most magical citizens of Britain, she lived in the muggle world, in a small flat in London not far from the Ministry of Magic. It provided privacy whilst also keeping her close to her office. The first time he visited her flat, it was late, and he waited in the shadows for a light to come on in her window.

At last she returned home, carrying a sack from a muggle store. She did not look his direction as she went inside. He knew that skulking about in the dark to spy on a mudblood was absolutely beneath his status as a Malfoy, but he couldn't help himself. He was drawn to her for reasons that passed all logic or understanding. It was bitterly cold outside, but utterly worth it when she wandered into her bedroom, and he was able to gaze up through the window and catch a few precious glimpses of her as she peeled off her robes and blouse. She wore a plain beige brassiere, but she looked so utterly fantastic to Draco that he had to stroke himself to completion as he watched her. He felt dirty after that, but he knew he'd be back. He couldn't resist her.

The second time he visited her flat, she was not home, and he'd planned for that. You could learn so much about a person from their home, and he wanted to know her, inside and out.

Her flat was protected by a series of complex wards, and he had to metaphorically tip his hat to her magical prowess. Still, such wards were nothing compared to what he could do. Dark magic always found a way.

He entered the flat with wand drawn, ready to defend himself, for he recalled the squish-faced part-kneazle familiar she had in school, and he half-expected to be greeted or attacked by another furry beast in her home, but the flat was thankfully silent.

Hermione Granger's home was small, just one bedroom. It was a warm and cosy space, nothing like his family's ancestral home. He mentally catalogued the floral chintz sofa and the overstuffed red armchair by the fireplace. He could picture her there, curled up with a good book and a glass of wine or a nice hot cuppa. The snob in him noted the worn spots on the sofa and the cheap fabric of the rug, the scratches on the small wooden dining table, and the garish muggle lights.

She had a small Christmas tree in the corner of the room, decorated with red and gold ornaments and topped with a gold star. It was a bit too Gryffindor for his taste, but it somehow fit nicely with the rest of the room. A few presents were wrapped in muggle paper and placed beneath the tree.

These were all interesting elements, all pieces to the puzzle that was Hermione Granger, but from a decor standpoint, they were all dwarfed by books. Her flat overflowed with books stacked on shelves that went to the ceiling, covering almost every bit of empty space along her walls. He perused the titles and noted the odd mix of muggle and magical novels and texts. It was no surprise that she filled her home with books, and he couldn't help but think about how happy she'd be in Malfoy Manor's library if she'd stick around long enough to explore it.

As she had no wall space for art, she instead displayed an array of magical and muggle photos in wood frames around the room. Draco found the muggle photos disconcerting - there was something wrong about photos that paused a person, a moment in time. The stillness was unsettling. He didn't recognise anyone other than Granger in the still photos, so perhaps they were muggle relations. A magical photo caught his eye then, and rage built in him as he stared at a repeating vision of Potter and Granger laughing as the weasel git slung his arm around her and kissed her cheek.

Before he could stop himself, Draco had his wand out and disintegrated the photo, leaving nothing but ash pressed against the glass of the frame. Granger would eventually notice, but he found that he did not care.

However, he recognised that destroying more of her photos would surely catch her attention straight away, so he instead moved swiftly to the rest of her home. The kitchen was a mystery to him, the muggle elements all unfamiliar. Besides, it wasn't as if he'd ever spent much time in his own kitchen - he had elves, after all.

The lavatory was absurdly small, but he cared less about the facilities and more about her personal effects. He sniffed some of her unfamiliar and apparently muggle beauty products, noting that her supply was meager compared to what he'd seen from other witches. She was pretty enough on her own though that she didn't need to fuss with numerous beauty potions and glamour charms. Still, he liked knowing that she cared enough to use perfume, cosmetics, and lotions with sensual fragrances. He inhaled deeply when he found her perfume bottle, trying to memorise her scent. He debated taking the bottle with him but figured she'd notice if it went missing. Before he moved on from the loo, Draco plucked several hairs from her hairbrush and carefully tucked them into his robes. He preferred to have the real thing, but a polyjuiced whore was better than nothing and could perhaps tide him over until he found a way to make Hermione his.

And she was Hermione now to him. No more Granger. He wasn't sure exactly when his mind had made that mental switch, but as he walked into her bedroom, he knew he'd reached a level of intimacy with her that required first names.

Like the rest of her home, Hermione's bedroom was small but cosy. She had floral bedding, but like her, it was not overly frilly or obnoxious in its femininity. A cheap muggle reproduction of a Degas painting of ballerinas hung on the wall, and he decided he'd take her to see the real thing. If she liked ballet that much, he could take her to see the world's best ballet performances if she wanted. More books were stacked on her bedside table with an empty water glass. He touched the rim of the glass gently, imagining her lips there.

Her wardrobe was laughably small, and her clothes generally plain. After years of being dragged along to haute couture boutiques with his mother, Hermione's attire felt inexpensive to his knowledgeable hands, the fabrics cheap to his elitist standards. He consoled himself with the thought that he could always buy her new robes. He fingered the camel-coloured robes she'd been wearing the night mistletoe brought them together. He didn't care for the way the outfit hid her shape, but he supposed he'd allow her to keep it for sentimental reasons.

The _piece de resistance_ of the whole exploration of her flat was the discovery of her lingerie, tucked away in her chest of drawers. He brushed his fingertips across satin and lace bras in neutral colours, and lingered over a surprisingly elegant black lace brassiere, imagining them cupping her perfect breasts. His cock twitched appreciatively as he stroked silky stockings with lace tops that she must have held in place with a sticking charm, for he saw no suspenders amongst her under things. And her knickers - oh Merlin - her knickers! They were surprisingly risque, given her generally prudish exterior: small, delicate bits of lace, satin, sheer fabric, and ribbons and bows. There was even a red thong! Draco generally disliked red, associating it with Gryffindor, but he had to adjust his cock through his trousers and pants at the thought of Hermione Granger in that tiny scrap of red fabric.

Then in the corner of the drawer, he saw it: a pair of demure, virginal, white satin knickers that looked surprisingly like the pair he swore he'd glimpsed on Hermione when she'd laid on the rug in his drawing room and spread her pretty thighs for him. He lifted them reverently from the drawer and held them to his nose, inhaling as if he could smell _her_ on them. Alas, they were clean, and he caught only a faint whiff of whatever muggles used to launder their clothing.

Before he knew it, Draco had his trousers open and his cock in hand, stroking himself with those white knickers. He slid the smooth satin up and down his cock before wrapping her knickers around his dick. The fabric was cool to the touch at first and sent a shiver down his spine, but warmed quickly, and as he closed his eyes, he could easily imagine it was her soft fingers gripping and stroking him hard and fast.

In his mind, he was no longer alone in her flat. _She_ was there with him, half-dressed and whispering filthy things in his ear and she stroked his cock. Her voice was breathy and thick with desire.

_Show me how much you want me. _

"Want you, _so_ much," he gritted out through clenched teeth.

_Show me. Use your hand and show me how you touch yourself when you think about me._

He could see her then, replacing her small fingers with his own hand before she moved seductively to the bed. She shoved the bedding out of the way and laid back on the sheet, baring herself to him as she had in his drawing room. But this time, this time as her skirt slid upward, he saw that she wore nothing underneath.

"You are so fucking beautiful," he hissed. "Touch yourself for me."

_Mmmm… like this?_

He groaned as she spread her legs and rubbed gently around her clitoris. Her cunt glistened with arousal already, and he longed to touch and taste and her.

"Yes… like that. Are you wet, darling?"

_So wet. You make me so wet, Draco._

He stroked himself harder. "Fuck yourself with your fingers. I want to see."

She slid one and then two fingers into her pussy and then moaned at the sensation as she watched his hand moving on his cock.

"Does that feel good?"

_Mmmm… feels better when you do it. _

She was going to kill him. He was sure of it. The vision of Hermione Granger, spread out half naked on her bed with two of her fingers shoved up her wet pussy, fucking herself just for him, was the sexiest thing he'd ever seen.

"Come for me. Rub your sweet pussy until you come, and I promise I'll lick you until you're begging me to stop," he said hoarsely.

A wicked look crossed her face, and she withdrew her fingers slowly and then brought them to her mouth. He groaned as he watched her suck them clean, denying him the taste.

"Merlin, that's so fucking hot."

_I'd rather have your tongue, and then your cock._

Her words and the throaty tone of voice went straight to his balls, and he had to squeeze the head of his cock to hold off an orgasm. He wanted to come with her.

"You are a dirty, filthy little witch."

_Your dirty, filthy witch._

"Yessss. Mine!" he groaned as she turned her attention back to her clit, rubbing all around it and over the tender nub. Her head tipped back and her eyes fluttered closed. Her cunt was so wet it practically shimmered, and he couldn't wait to bury himself inside of her.

_Mmmm… gonna come, Draco. _

"Yes, that's it, that's my girl. Show me." He couldn't last much longer but was determined to hold off until she came.

_Oh...oh god!_

Her slender thighs trembled, her hips bucked, and she came with a long, deep moan, and he felt like the luckiest wizard in the world to bear witness to it. He stroked himself harder and faster, not daring to take his eyes off her.

Her fingers slid away from her pussy at last, but she left her legs open, a perfect picture of debauchery. She was utter perfection.

_Come for me, my love._

"Fuck, oh fuck. Yes!"

His orgasm ripped through him, and he came with a roar, shooting ropes of white come across her cunt and thighs.

It was a miracle he was still standing when it was over. He was still trying to catch his breath when she reached down and rubbed his come into her skin, making him groan at the sight.

_I love watching you._

He opened his mouth to respond, and it startled him to realise that "I love _you_" was on the tip of his tongue. He'd never said that to a witch before. He closed his mouth and closed his eyes for a moment, hoping to slow his racing heart and heavy breathing.

Draco opened his eyes again and then blinked, disoriented. Hermione wasn't there. He was alone, in her bedroom, with her white satin knickers wrapped around his deflating cock, and he'd somehow managed to tear back the blankets on her bed and come onto the very sheets where she slept.

He shoved her knickers into his pocket and tucked his cock back into his trousers, red-faced at what he'd apparently just done. It had felt _so real_. He could have sworn she was there, touching herself just for him.

He cast a quick _scourgify_ with his wand, cleaning his hand and her bed. He couldn't help but wonder what the fuck he was doing. He was in Hermione Granger's flat. He'd broken in. He'd masturbated around a pair of her knickers and had ejaculated all over her sheets. This was… not normal. It was not _him_. He was Draco Lucius Malfoy, heir to the Malfoy and Black fortunes. He did not break into a witch's flat and wank on her bed.

He ran his fingers through his hair and paced her bedroom, agitated. There was something seriously wrong with him, and he knew it. Fantasies were one thing - he'd had more than his share of explicit, detailed fantasies involving beautiful witches - but what he'd just experienced was so much more realistic than any fantasy he'd ever experienced. And then there were the visions. He was certain Hermione had been in his home at least twice, flirting with him both times, but both his elf and the witch herself insisted that was not the case.

Despite what Hermione claimed when she met him for tea, he was certain she'd bewitched him in some way. Surely that had to be the case, for why else would he feel this way about a mudblood?

He left her home that day determined to put an end to his obsession.

Except that it wasn't that simple. A _finite incantatem_ did not work. Nor did a general antidote potion. Not even a bezoar did much for him, other than leave him with the dreadful taste of goat in his mouth.

As he stood in his private potions lab in the basement of Malfoy Manor, casting a breath-freshening charm to rid his mouth of the dreadful taste of the bezoar, he swore he could hear her giggle before she whispered at him.

_Oh my love, you can't get rid of me that easily._


	5. Chapter 5: The Minister's Gala

A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed, favorited, or followed this story. I love reading your thoughts about Draco's experience. I debated splitting this chapter in two but ultimately decided to keep it together and not make you wait. Let me know what you think!

Beta love to Tassana Burrfoot!

Cheers,

Elle

Chapter 5: The Minister's Gala

Draco did not typically attend the annual holiday gala held at the Minister for Magic's official residence in London. His financial status was such that he usually warranted an invitation, but he wasn't especially liked in certain prominent circles, and it was a hassle to find a date just to deal with hateful glares or even outright rude comments when he could just as easily meet with various members of the Ministry in private. But this year, he went. He had to. Hermione Granger was going to be there. It was one of the few society events she bothered to attend.

So he went, and he went without a date because he couldn't bear the thought of having a witch on his arm in her presence. He went and made polite conversation with the members of the Wizengamot and staff of the Ministry who were willing to speak with him in public, and he cast cold glares at anyone who dared look askance at him. He heard plenty of indignant whispers and more than a few muttered insults, but few were bold enough to outright confront him. The Malfoy reputation was both a blessing and a curse.

At last he spotted her, and the sight of her made the previous hour of inane conversation and dirty looks worth the wait. Despite her generally sedate appearance most days, Hermione looked phenomenal. This was a revelation to Draco. He'd come to grips with being attracted to a mudblood, but seeing her tonight, in this environment, dressed as she was, the realisation that Hermione Granger was strikingly beautiful hit him with the force of a bludger. She wore a dark blue velvet dress with silver accents at the shoulders. The sapphire and diamond necklace she wore was an obvious fake to his trained eye but looked nice enough on her. Her hair seemed to glow in the soft candlelight of the room, falling in loose curls past her shoulders. To his surprise, she'd worn makeup, complete with red lipstick.

Suddenly, all he could think about were those red lips wrapped around his cock. A vision swam before him of Hermione in that dress, on her knees before him, sliding her lips up and down his cock as he gripped a fistful of her hair. The vision was so realistic and affected him so profoundly that he had to put his wine glass down and grip the bannister as he watched her walk down the stairs to the ground floor, totally ignorant of his presence. He swore he could_ feel_ her lips on his prick, hear her soft grunts and moans and little gagging noises she made as his cock hit the back of her throat and she left lipstick stains on his skin. He could hear his own voice, the harsh whispers encouraging her, threatening her, _possessing _her.

Draco rubbed his eyes and shook his head, trying to clear away the vision. It was so _real_. He looked around then and realised Hermione had slipped away from him. He tried to fight a rising tide of unexplained panic as he made his way through the gala, ignoring the occasional harsh glare or whispered insult.

He had to find her. He needed her, needed to see her, hear her voice, touch her soft skin. He thought he caught a glimpse of her down one hallway, so he followed the petite witch, only to find another brunette in a dark dress, a witch who hissed at him and called him a Death Eater under her breath.

He backtracked through the crowd, his eyes scanning the room for her. He could not understand the growing panic in him as he struggled to catch sight of her. He cursed under his breath as he darted out of the way of a sprig of mistletoe hanging near a doorway and then ducked to avoid a run-in with Horace Slughorn. There was no love lost there with his former head of house.

He thought he saw Hermione two more times, only to realise he'd been following the wrong witch. There were clearly too many brunette witches in dark colours at this event. He couldn't help but wish she'd worn a more vibrant colour or that he'd thought to apply a tracking charm to her the last time he'd seen her.

When he at last found her, she was standing outside on the stone veranda, sipping from a flute of champagne as she spoke with Potter and the She-Weasel. Warming charms had been cast around the area, making it pleasant outside despite the cold and clear December night. He cast a disillusionment charm on himself and carefully made his way closer, keeping himself positioned behind Potter. He didn't know if the boy-who-wouldn't-die could see through such charms, but since he was an Auror, Draco didn't want to take a chance.

He tried to listen in on their conversation, but they were too far away, and he was hesitant to get too close. He caught bits and pieces - something about a dinner that Hermione was attending with Potter, but not his wife, which Draco thought extremely odd. Fury boiled in him at the idea of _his_ Hermione having some sort of illicit something with Harry Fucking Potter. He had to resist the strong urge to curse the black-haired wizard from behind.

It felt like he waited an eternity before Potter and his wife_ finally_ left and wandered back into the party, leaving Hermione outside and alone.

Before he'd fully thought out a plan, Draco impatiently cast a notice-me-not charm and a _muffliato_ before dropping the disillusionment charm and revealing himself to the witch he desired.

She startled at the sight of him.

"Oh my god! You scared me!"

He narrowed his eyes at her. "What are you doing with Potter?"

He spit the words out without thinking. He was angry with her, for wandering out of his sight and for talking with another wizard, and he instinctively knew that this was perhaps not the best approach to take with the object of his obsession, but he couldn't help himself.

"Excuse me? I don't see how that's any… Wait. Were you SPYING on me?" She was indignant, an angry blush staining her cheeks, and he found it wholly alluring.

Draco rolled his wand back and forth between his fingers, a means of dispelling nervous energy. His entire body seemed to come alive in her presence. Yes, this had been worth it, worth the hateful looks and insults and stupid commentary from Ministry morons to be here with her. It wasn't like he could say that though - he wasn't a damn Hufflepuff, after all.

"Hardly. You and Potter are louder than you think. I knew Gryffindors were bold, but talking about a dinner with your lover in front of his wife? That's ballsy."

"What?! Are you insane?" Her voice was shrill, a mix of outrage and amusement that he did not particularly appreciate.

"Hard to tell these days."

There was a painful amount of truth in that statement, and he wasn't sure how he felt when she glossed over it.

"Harry is my FRIEND, Malfoy."

"Draco."

She rolled her eyes but repeated his name.

He crossed his arms and stared down at her imperiously. She blinked at him and shivered, and he reveled in the idea that he made her nervous.

"Do you mean to tell me that there's not ANYTHING physical or romantic between you and Potter?"

She made a face. "Not that it's _any _of your business, but Harry is like a brother to me. Despite what Skeeter and her gossip rag like to print, I've _never_ been involved with Harry like that. What is your problem? You know what - I don't care. I don't owe you a damn thing."

A sense of profound relief washed over him at her insistence that she'd never been defiled by Potter. Granted, she could have been lying - he'd never trust a Slytherin witch who said the same thing - but the way she'd automatically made a disgusted face at the idea of shagging Potter made him think she was likely being truthful. Her brush-off and her apparent lack of concern toward him though made him angry, and it only exacerbated the sense of possession he felt over the lovely witch standing before him.

"What's my problem?" he repeated. "You know, I can't decide if you ignore my owls out of spite or if muggle etiquette is so poor that you've failed to understand that a reply is expected."

Her brow furrowed. "What are you talking about?"

"I sent you a pensieve, Hermione. Two specific memories, and you never responded."

She flinched, just barely, at his use of her first name.

"No, you sent me scenes spun entirely from an overactive imagination! I don't know how you did it, how you created something that realistic, but I don't appreciate it. And I certainly don't want to receive any more of your tawdry fantasies."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. I don't know what kind of game you're playing or what you're trying to accomplish here, but leave me out of it."

She tried to step past him, but he grabbed her upper arm and moved her back, away from the door.

"It's NOT from my imagination, and if I wanted to send you a fantasy, it would have been a sight more explicit than a conversation with you in my library or a mere glimpse of your knickers. It's the real thing. My memories. Why do you insist on denying it?" he demanded, squeezing her arm harder.

She wriggled in his hold. "You're hurting me!"

He pushed her back into the shadows and up against an ivy-covered wall but loosened his grip on her just enough that she wouldn't bruise. "Stop trying to run away from me!"

"Let go!"

"Answer me!" he said, pushing her harder against the wall. "Why do you deny it?"

"Because I wasn't there!" she yelled.

He froze then, studying her face and the way her chest heaved from her struggle with him. She looked deadly serious.

"You can't create pensieve memories from thin air. You know this," he said quietly, keeping her caged against the wall.

She shook her head. "Maybe… maybe your subconscious genuinely _believes_ I was there, and that's why you were able to extract it as a memory. It should be theoretically possible."

"I'm not crazy!" he shot back.

She held up her hands in a placating manner, but he noticed her eyes darting around, likely looking for someone to come to her rescue.

"I never said you were. I was just looking for a logical explanation for how you could extract a memory of me being somewhere I wasn't. That's all."

"Don't patronise me."

"I'm not!"

Yes despite her insistence, Draco did indeed feel as if she was placating him. He didn't want to be placated or _handled_ or treated with kid gloves as if she feared he'd gone mad.

"Why are you doing this? What is it you hope to gain, Granger?" he said, almost in a whisper, leaning in closer to her, hating how desperate he sounded.

She shook her head. "I'm not doing _anything_!"

He could smell her then, smell her perfume, the same light, delicate fragrance he remembered from her flat. It made him want to bury his face in her neck and hair. She was agitated, and the faster rise and fall of her chest, combined with the neckline of her blue dress made him painfully aware of her breasts.

_Touch me. Please. _

He closed his eyes for a moment, still holding onto her arm. Her voice echoed in his head, her tone sultry. She wanted him. He was sure of it.

"Oh, but you are, love, and I think we both know it," he rasped. He opened his eyes and stared at her again.

_Kiss me. Please. Draco._

Her breath hitched, and he could not stop himself. He pressed his lips to hers, delighting in the little squeak of noise she made, as if she was somehow _surprised_ that he'd kissed her.

She tasted of champagne and - faintly - of strawberries, and it made him want to pour chilled champagne on her and lap it from her bare skin as she writhed beneath him. He pressed his body against hers, revealing in the pure _intensity _of all of it: the way she pushed at his shoulders and tangled her hands in his robes, the way her fingernails dug into the sensitive skin on the back of his neck as she scratched at him, and the sounds - oh Merlin! - the delicious sounds she made! Her little whimpers and the frantic whisper of "Draco" that she managed to get out in between kisses made his cock ache for her.

_Take me home. Please. Take me. _

Her sultry voice echoed in his ears, and suddenly the words made perfect sense. Yes, take her home. He could leave with her. It was such an obvious, simple solution that he felt stupid for not considering it earlier. And yet, it wasn't _that_ simple, at least not in its execution. It would create too much of a commotion, cause too much of a stir to walk back through the gala with her. Someone would stop them. Potter, probably. But they were outside at present, and he knew from Lucius's past dealings with Scrimgeour and Fudge that around the corner of the Minister's official residence, just past the gate house, was a designated apparition point. It was used primarily for caterers, deliveries, and other business and was a discreet way for someone to easily slip in and out of the property without having to access an official floo.

He considered all of this, quickly, as he kissed her. Yes, he could leave with her. He should leave with her. It would solve everything, wouldn't it? He felt infinitely better in her presence, and maybe taking her home, fucking her, and getting her out of his system would calm the chaos in his head.

He felt pain and then the sharp taste of blood as she bit his bottom lip. He was surprised at her apparent interest in rough play, as he'd not pegged her for the type.

"Let go of me!" she hissed, pushing at his shoulders again.

He eased back from her and flicked his tongue over his bleeding lip before whispering a wandless healing charm as he noted the look of fear on her face. Was she truly that afraid someone would see them? She was comfortable with biting but not with exhibitionism, then. Or was she just afraid of being seen with _him_? The very notion filled him with fury. He was one of the wealthiest wizards in Britain, he was handsome and powerful, and heir to magical legacies that spanned centuries! How dare she fear being caught with him?

The same sense of panic he'd felt earlier in the evening when he'd lost sight of her in the crowd was building inside him again, and he didn't understand why.

"No one can see us," he hissed before kissing her again, hard. He wanted to devour her, needed to feel her inside and out. His tongue ruthlessly plumbed the depths of her mouth as he slid his hands over the soft fabric of her gown to grip her thigh. He propped her leg on his hip and thrust against her, drawing a groan from her. Yes, she wanted him, he was certain of it.

"Where did she go?"

Draco froze at the sound of a female voice.

"She said she was going to stay out here."

Potter. Bloody fucking Potter. Of course. Draco wanted to punch the stone wall behind Hermione at the knowledge that Potter and the She-Weasel had returned.

"HARRY! GINNY!' Hermione shrieked, having also caught sight of her friends.

"You don't think anything happened to her? She said she'd wait here while we got another round of drinks." She-Weasel sounded nervous, and Draco didn't like that.

Hermione made a shrieking sound, and Draco frantically clasped a hand over her mouth and made soft shushing noises at her. His heart was pounding so fast he thought it might explode out of his chest. He was unsure how long his charms would hold if Potter was suspicious and cast a few _hominem revelios_ or_ finite incantatems_ of his own. Hermione was obviously distressed at the presence of her friends, and he feared any attempt to reveal his presence would turn nasty rather quickly, and the Minister's gala was not the place for a confrontation of this sort.

He panicked.

It was the only explanation Draco could come up with later for how he reacted in that moment. Gryffindors would call it cowardice, but like any good Slytherin, he understood and valued self-preservation.

Before he could stop himself, Draco cast a quick but strong _confundus_ on Hermione, feeling an ache in his chest when her eyes glazed over and a look of confusion marred her lovely face. He then disillusioned himself and moved a safe distance from her, ducking further into the shadows before he dropped the _muffliato_ and notice-me-not charms.

He should have left then, but he couldn't bear it. He watched in seething silence as a dazed and confused Hermione emerged from the shadows.

"Where were you?" She-Weasel asked as she passed Hermione a champagne flute.

Hermione touched her fingertips to her lips gently before looking back and forth between her friends.

"Hermione, are you okay?"

Draco sneered at Potter's concerned and had to resist the urge to curse him as that arsehole dared put a concerned hand on Hermione's upper arm.

"I just… I don't know. I… I must have been daydreaming."

"Are you sure?" Potter looked around, scanning the verandah and gardens.

It was hard to tell from his hiding place in the darkness, but Draco thought he could see a blush rise up Hermione's cheeks. That was certainly interesting. An obliviate might have been a better choice, as she couldn't tell Potter what she couldn't recall, but he couldn't bear the idea of erasing their passionate encounter from her brilliant mind. The idea that she apparently considered the whole thing a blush-worthy naughty daydream was a much more preferable outcome. It would give him the opportunity to later share with her just how real their kisses had been on this night.

"I… I'm fine," Hermione said quickly, taking a sip of her champagne.

"Maybe you shouldn't drink anything else," Potter said in a worried voice, eyeing her champagne.

"Harry, please. I'm hardly drunk. Come on. Let's go inside," she said.

Draco watched as Hermione smiled at her friends and the trio went inside. The last he saw of her was Potter's hand resting gently near her lower back as he escorted the two witches back into the Minister's residence.

~oOo~

When he apparated home from the Ministry gala, the first thing he did was demand a bottle of firewhisky from whichever elf happened to be standing there to take his cloak. He drank straight from the bottle and downed the equivalent of a full glass before he made it up the first flight of stairs.

He'd touched her. He'd kissed her. He'd been so close to her, and the temptation to take her right there, in front of the Minister and everyone else had been overwhelming. She'd fought him, sure, but she'd also wanted him. He was certain of it.

She wanted him, but she didn't dare admit it.

The very thought infuriated him. He was Draco Lucius Malfoy, heir to two most noble and ancient families, one of the wealthiest wizards in Britain, despite the Ministry's attempts to rob him blind. She should be on her knees in gratitude that he wanted her, that he was willing to lower himself to cavort with a mudblood! How dare she reject him!

He took another long swig of whiskey from the bottle. He was keyed up, far too keyed up to work, read, or go to bed. He was in the uncomfortable position of not knowing what to do with himself as he wandered down the hall to his study, and then to the library. He wove his way through the stacks, remembering where he'd seen Hermione in her lovely little black dress, with her flirtatious smile. He circled through the drawing room, past her bloodstain on the antique carpet and the spot where she'd laid on the floor and spread her legs for him, showing off her pretty white knickers. He stood there for a long time, finishing that bottle of whiskey and calling one of the elves for another.

By the time he started in on the second bottle, he'd gone from anger at Hermione to anger at Harry bloody fucking Potter for interrupting them. Before they'd been so rudely disrupted, she'd been kissing him back. She'd groaned into his mouth. He'd been so close to being able to simply leave with her when Potter fucked it all up. Sure, Hermione swore she thought of him like a brother, but he'd seen the way Potter looked at her. Potter _wanted _her, he was sure of it. Rage filled him at the thought of Potter daring to even touch her.

He stumbled down from the drawing room below the house and into the remnants of Malfoy Manor's ancient dungeons, rooms that saw prisoners in the last war. He leaned against a cold stone wall as his fantasy of escaping the Minister's gala with Hermione in tow morphed into an admittedly disturbed scenario in which he somehow kidnapped the wizarding world's golden boy and locked him in the darkest, dankest cell in the dungeons and tortured him with the _cruciatus_ curse before chaining him to the wall and forcing him to watch as he fucked Hermione in front of him on a bed of green silk. He took another drink from the bottle and savoured the sound of Potter's anguished cries, cries that he was certain he could _almost_ hear.

Eventually all good fantasies had to come to an end, and his ended when he realised it was really fucking cold in the dungeons in December and there were better places for him to wander about and plot revenge. He stumbled only twice going back up the stairs, something he thought quite respectable considering that the ancient stone steps were starting to blur in his vision by that point.

One of his more lucid thoughts was that he really ought to go to bed. Unfortunately by that point, he'd consumed enough alcohol to drown a hippogriff and wasn't exactly in the best of states as he made his way up the manor's seemingly endless sets of stairs. Really, why on earth did his poncy ancestors need so damn many floors anyway?

He wasn't sure how it happened, but one moment, he was walking down the hall, headed toward his room, and the next he was sprawled out on the moss green rug that lined the hall not far from his suite of rooms. He thought perhaps he'd tripped over something, but alas, there was nothing in the hall.

"What a disgrace!"

Draco looked around at the sound of the nasally voice.

"The last heir of the Malfoy name, a drunkard and a fool!"

Oh yes, he thought ruefully, he knew that voice. Or, rather, he thought he did.

"Grandfather? Is that you?" he asked, fumbling to push him into a seated position on the floor.

"Were Abraxas here, he would skin you alive for your buffoonery!"

Not his grandfather, then, Draco reasoned as he took another swig from the bottle and looked at the portraits on the wall.

"Which one of you painted fucks is talking to me?" he slurred.

A rush of indignant responses flew back at him. He caught snippets of "Well, I never!" "Such impertinence!" "Grand-pere never would have stood for this!"

"You had best have a jolly good reason for your pathetic behaviour! This is unbecoming of the Malfoy name!" Another painting. Why the fuck did they all sound like Lucius when they were angry, he wondered.

Was this to be his fate? Someday a shadow of his magic left behind in a painting that spoke like his father and generations of other sneering blond Malfoy wizards? Once upon a time, when he was a child and Dark Lords were the stuff of fairy tales, Lucius had introduced him to his ancestors: hall after hall filled with portraits of the wizards and witches who'd come before him. This, Lucius had said, was where their portraits would someday hang in places of honour, so that generations of Malfoys to come would bring their children down these hallowed halls to teach the little ones the lessons of the old and the dead.

"What a fucking joke," he muttered under his breath. He leaned back against the wood-paneled wall and sighed.

Then she was there.

Hermione.

His.

She was still wearing that dark blue gown from the gala, and she swept gracefully down the hall with an elegance that not even his stodgy ancestors could find lacking.

"There you are, love," she said softly, bending at the knee beside him to brush his hair from his face.

"You're back. How do you keep getting in here?"

She leaned in close to him and in a conspiratorial, teasing whisper said, "Magic."

He snorted. "Fine. Keep your secrets. I'll sort it out eventually."

"You like a challenge. Admit it."

"Only if you admit that you want me. I know you want me. You kissed me back."

A pretty blush coloured her cheeks as she knelt on the floor beside him.

"Oh Draco… I _do_ want you, I do. It's just that I'm not _supposed _to want you. You know my friends will never accept us together. Harry, Ron, the Weasleys, all of them."

He stared at her for a moment, wondering how her Gryffindor bravery had deserted her so. Then he took another gulp of whiskey.

"The rest of the world can go take a flying fuck for all I care," he said bitterly.

"You don't mean that."

"I do. No one gives a damn whether I live or die," he spat. "Why should I care if Saint Potter is offended when no one cares about me?"

Her brown eyes filled with tears, and she brushed his hair back from his face again.

"I care," she said in a soft whisper. "I care about what happens to you."

"No you don't. You slither in here through my wards, and then you act like a different person in public." He was vaguely aware that he was pouting, and that it was most unbecoming and the sort of thing Lucius would have punished him for doing, but it never failed to work on his mother.

Hermione looked contrite. "I'm sorry. I suppose I haven't been very fair to you. It's just… you took me by surprise that night in the Ministry, and I'm… I'm afraid."

He scoffed. "You? Afraid? You're not afraid. You run headlong into danger with little thought to personal safety like only a Gryffindor can."

She looked as if she might giggle, but then her expression sobered and she looked almost forlorn. "It was always Harry who ran headlong into danger without thinking of the consequences. He acts first and asks questions later. And that's why… Harry is the problem. Harry and Ron and everyone else. They'll do whatever they can to take me away from you. They won't let me go, Draco."

"I suppose I could kill him for you. Would you like that?"

"Mmmm...it would not be my first choice."

"Why not? Too bloodthirsty?"

"It would cause too many problems. Harry's too visible. Too well known."

She bit down on her bottom lip and furrowed her brow, a look of concentration on her face that reminded him far too much of their days at Hogwarts. How, he wondered, had he failed to see what a glorious creature she was when they were still in school? It was such a shame she'd been born a mudblood. Had she been a pureblood witch, he could have claimed her years ago.

"You have to take me," she whispered, jerking him from his thoughts.

"Take you?"

She nodded, an eager look on her face now.

"You have to come for me, Draco. I'll be like Rapunzel in her tower, waiting for a prince to come rescue me! You can't go after Harry, but you could take me, and you could keep me here, and protect me from everyone who would tear us apart."

He stared at her then, and his heart suddenly felt like it might explode out of his chest. Was she… was she really offering what he thought she was? He reached out with a shaky hand to touch her. He thought his fingertips might pass right through her like an apparition, but the pads of his fingers met the soft, warm flesh of her upper arm.

"You're real," he whispered.

She giggled at that. "Of course I'm real. I'm real, and I want to be yours."

"You promise?" he asked, fearful of a catch. There had to be some sort of catch.

A slight nod from her.

"Kiss me. Kiss me and prove it," he said in a harsher tone.

She leaned in toward him, and his eyes fluttered closed. He could feel her breath on his lips. And then…

Nothing.

He opened his eyes, and the hall seemed to tilt as alcohol fucked with his equilibrium. There was a dull roar in his ears, but he ignored it to look for his witch.

"Hermione? HERMIONE!"

"Pathetic." "Can it be?" "It's happening, isn't it?" "I knew it - I knew nothing good would come of such a match. A French witch would have been better." "He's gone mad." "It happens to them - all of them, you know." "Shouldn't have married her." "Such a waste." "What will become of us now?" "It's the taint of the Black family."

A cacophony of painted voices swirled around him.

"SHUT UP!" he yelled, clutching at his suddenly aching head.

There was a moment of silence as the portraits ceased their arguing, and he had the distinct feeling they were all staring at him.

"I shan't be silenced by the mad ramblings of a deranged wizard," a female voice said imperiously.

Draco frowned as he looked around for the portrait who dared refuse to obey his command. It took him a shamefully long time to stumble to his feet, and then he had to lean against the wall for balance as he took in the sight of the ancestor whose painting he was likely going to defile as soon as he had the opportunity.

She was a haughty witch with blonde hair so pale it was almost a silvery-white. She stared at him with cold, green eyes.

"I am neither mad, nor deranged," he said in a low voice.

She sniffed disdainfully. "You are Draco Lucius Malfoy, son of Lucius Abraxas, are you not?"

"I am."

"Then you most certainly are indeed mad, for I witnessed you carrying on a conversation entirely with yourself."

"I was talking to _Hermione_."

She somehow managed to look both triumphant and utterly disgusted with him.

"You were talking to thin air, _boy_."

"As soon as I find a sober-up potion and a wand, you won't be talking at all when I conjure a flannel and some turpentine," he threatened as he turned away, intending to continue his trek to his rooms in the hopes Hermione would be there.

A host of irate voices rose up around him, all indignant, painted voices directing their fury at him for his threats of ancestral portrait destruction. It made his head ache.

"Silence me if you dare, but it won't stop the mistletoe," she hissed.

That stopped him dead in his tracks as a memory of his body entwined with Hermione's beneath the Ministry's mistletoe flashed in his mind.

"What did you say?"

"The mistletoe. It's happened, hasn't it? The taint of the Black family. Lucius never should have married a _Black_."

The slight against his mother's family angered him. Yes, it was true that the Black family had endured more than its share of tragedy and loss in the last few decades, but as the heir to that family line as well as the Malfoy line, he could not permit anyone to cast aspersions on his family, not even a portrait of one of his father's ancestors.

"You don't know all." "Should not say anything." "It's not our place." "Did no one prepare him?" "There were rumours, well before the last generation, you know." More whispers and furtive arguments from the portrait gallery.

"SILENCE!" Draco roared at the other paintings, at the end of his patience with them all. He waved his hand in there general direction, silencing them with a wandless, nonverbal spell. All except for the haughty, silver-haired portrait in front of him.

"What about the mistletoe? I demand you tell me everything you know!"

She arched one pale, silver-blonde eyebrow at him and sneered. "I will not abide by your tone, young man. If you want to know all, I suggest you ask your pathetic excuse of a _mother_."


	6. Chapter 6: The Mistletoe Legacy

A/N: I'm super nervous about the reveal in this chapter. I hope it lives up to everyone's expectations! As always, I welcome your feedback. Beta love and many thanks to TassanaBurrfoot and Lovergurrl411.

~oOo~

Chapter 6: The Mistletoe Legacy

The very idea of speaking to his mother twisted Draco's stomach into knots. He resolved to deal with it on the morrow, when he was sober, and instead called an elf to help him to bed.

He awoke the next morning with memories of the previous night swirling in his aching head. In the cold light of day, in what was beginning to feel like a shorter and shorter stretch of clear-headedness, Draco knew that _something_ was wrong with him. Hermione had been there, surely she'd been there beside him, kneeling on the floor. He'd felt her breath on his cheek and ear when she whispered to him. He'd felt the firm warmth of her flesh when he'd touched her arm. Yet when he'd asked after her, Tippy had eyed him with a mix of fear and despair as the elf admitted no one had been in the manor last night save for Master Draco and the elves.

Even through the haze of the prior night's firewhisky, Draco could remember with great distinction the smell of Hermione's perfume, the feel of her soft skin, the promise of more, of a future with her if he could protect them both from the wrath of one scar-faced wanker. It was real. He knew it was real.

He tried to work that day, he truly did, but he was unable to concentrate. Thoughts of Hermione, of the gala, of drunken wanderings and arguments with portraits clouded his thoughts. One of his ancestors spoke of… mistletoe. Yes, that was it, he recalled. Mistletoe.

Draco rolled a quill in his hands as he pondered the possibilities. Something about a mistletoe, a curse, the Black family. Some of the portraits of Lucius's family had never particularly liked his mother. He had faint memories of harsh whispers from them and statements he'd not understood as a child. Was it all related somehow? As a child he'd never understood how any stodgy Malfoy portrait could dislike his mother. Narcissa Black Malfoy was beautiful, brilliant, powerful, cunning, and charming. She was everything a proper pureblood witch should be.

The paintings spoke of a curse. Madness. The Blacks. Mistletoe.

Surely it could not be mere coincidence that the last few weeks of his life, weeks since he was trapped beneath enchanted mistletoe with Hermione Granger, had left him feeling off-balance, confused, and even… dare he think it… insane?

As much as he hated to do so, by evening it appeared that he had no choice. He would have to speak to his mother.

~oOo~

In the depths of the dusty and dimly lit attic, Draco found his mother's portrait, carefully wrapped in black cloth. It was exactly as it had been when he ordered it wrapped and stored away. He carried it downstairs with him and used a sticking charm to place it on the wall in his study before removing the cloth.

His heart lurched, and he had to blink back tears at the painted version of Narcissa Black Malfoy. She was nearly as beautiful on canvas as she had been in life. The painting sparked with magic, and her crystal blue eyes widened when she saw him.

"Draco! Oh my darling boy! Oh I've missed you so much! I've been locked away in the dark for such a long time, but you found me! I should have known you'd find me!" her smile was beautiful, and he felt as if she was ripping his heart out of his chest.

"Silence!" he said harshly, startling the painted essence of his mother. "Do not speak to me about how much you miss me. Not after what you did."

He paced in front of the painting, gathering his chaotic thoughts as his mother pursed her lips but remained quiet, a guilty look on her face.

"Mother, the painting of…" he paused for a moment trying to remember precisely how the sneering silvery blonde witch in the hall was related to him.

"One of our ancestors said something about a curse," he said finally. "Something about mistletoe."

He did not miss the way his mother appeared to suck in a deep breath. He narrowed his eyes at her.

"You know then what she meant?"

"It's...Draco my darling, you really should not listen to the prattling of ancient paintings."

She knew something. He was certain of it. Anger boiled in him at the idea that she was keeping something from him.

"Tell me, mother. Tell me, or I swear by Merlin I will shred this painting."

She gasped in horror. "You would not dare!"

"Do not try me."

Painted Narcissa looked resigned then.

"I assume it was your great-great-great aunt Calpurnia, then. She never did like me, that hag. Very well then. She spoke of... the Mistletoe Legacy. It is, most regrettably, a curse on the Black family line."

Draco frowned and poured himself a drink. A curse would explain his jumbled emotions and mental state, he supposed. After all, he himself had previously suspected some sort of dark magic was at play to make him desire a mudblood.

Narcissa paused as if gathering her thoughts before speaking.

"Generations ago, Taurus Black was the eldest of his generation and thus the heir. He was said to be one of the most desirable bachelors of the day, and he was pursued most indecently by a young witch. She was a pureblood but from one of the lesser families, certainly not worthy of marrying into the Blacks, despite her proficiency at dark magic. She claimed that he'd taken her virginity and left her with child. He denied it to his dying day, insisting that he'd never defiled the girl, that she'd had no legitimate claim on him.

"When Taurus rejected her, she schemed to trap him beneath enchanted mistletoe. Some have said she hoped the kiss they shared under the mistletoe would reawaken his desire for her and convince him to marry her. Others have claimed she bit his lip to collect a drop of blood for a love potion or a blood ritual. Regardless, he rejected her again, cruelly this time. Rather than sending her on her way, Taurus did kiss her beneath the mistletoe and led her to believe he would have her as his wife. Instead, he handed her over to an associate who, rumour has it, took the witch by force and bound her to him against her will, leaving Taurus free to marry the Yaxley heiress."

"Was she? With child?" Draco asked. Despite the easy availability of contraceptive potions and charms, it was not unheard of for a philandering wizard to leave behind a bastard or two.

Narcissa shrugged. "It's difficult to say. It was so long ago and record-keeping was not always precise. There were rumours she suffered a miscarriage as a result of her marital binding, as her husband's magic would not allow for another wizard's child to be born in the marriage, but who knows how the story may have been embellished over time?"

"So, a scorned witch who excelled at dark magic. Let me guess," he said snidely. "She cursed him."

Narcissa nodded. "Yes. Taurus married his heiress and produced a son, Sirius, who was one of many Blacks to carry that name. The witch he scorned escaped her husband and returned to Taurus. She killed him - slit his throat and, so the story goes, castrated him as he bled out - and then turned her wand on herself, but not before cursing his entire line, starting with Sirius who was but a baby at the time."

Draco downed the rest of his drink with a grimace, cringing at the brutal death his ancestor had suffered. Given how dark the Black family tended to be, he supposed it was a bloody miracle they hadn't been further cursed by enemies or other disgruntled parties.

"Go ahead then mother and tell me just how badly I've been cursed. What does the curse do? Am I to die soon then?"

She dipped her head, a lock of pale blonde hair falling forward to obscure her face.

"Descendants of Taurus Black, beginning with his children, were cursed by mistletoe. Should they be trapped underneath it once they came of age, a kiss to release the spell would activate the curse, leading to an obsession with the witch or wizard they'd kissed under the enchanted plant. The obsession worsens until it leads to madness." Her voice had dropped to a whisper by the end of her statement as she continued to look away from her son.

Draco tried to process what he'd just learned. Obsession. Madness. As much as he hated to admit it, it fit with everything he'd experienced since the night he first kissed Granger. Just thinking about it suddenly brought forth a new vision, and he could have sworn Hermione herself had just sauntered into the room, dressed in a silky green negligee. Had his mother not just shared this crucial bit of information about the curse, he would have believed Hermione's presence in the room to be real.

He shook his head and tried to force the vision from his mind, but he heard her voice, whispering in his ear.

_Will you take me again? Under the mistletoe, Draco?_

He shook his head again and pressed a palm to his forehead, and mercifully Hermione's voice went silent.

"This affects all Black descendants?" he clarified, looking up at his mother's painting.

"I… I admit I do not know. This was not the sort of thing spoken of in the open, you see. The curse was a liability, a weakness others could exploit against us. It was kept as quiet as possible. There were some who appeared unaffected, but I do not know if they were spared from the curse or if they simply managed to avoid mistletoe."

He hurled a mostly empty bottle of firewhisky at the stone fireplace mantle and watched the glass shatter and the remaining alcohol meld with the flames in a burst so powerful that painting Narcissa attempted to move back from it from her spot above the mantle.

"Did it not occur to you, Mother, that this was something I might need to know? Did you think about that? At all? Did you think about telling your only child he'd been CURSED before you threw yourself from the roof?" he screamed.

For a time the room was silent save for the crackling of the fire and Draco's harsh breaths as he tried to avoid breaking down into tears. He shouldn't have mentioned her death. He shouldn't have even thought about it. He squeezed his eyes shut and scratched at his face, as if he could somehow claw out the memory of his mother's broken body on the flagstones below, blood pooling beneath her and staining her blonde hair. She'd not been quite right since Lucius had been sentenced to the kiss, and once the sentence had been carried out in Azkaban, she'd lost touch with reality. Draco had tried to help her in her grief, even as he scorned the sire who'd brought a madman into their lives and nearly gotten them all killed. He should have done more. He should have found a way to help her.

"Stop it, stop it," he whispered to himself. He needed to think about something better. Something pleasant. Unbidden thoughts of Hermione crept in. She had a soft spot for the broken and downtrodden. She would comfort him, hold him, whisper away the bad visions and memories.

He paced the room, trying to take deep breaths.

"Oh my darling - it will be alright."

He made a strangled sound in his throat at the sound of Hermione's voice. She was standing in front of him in that silky green negligee, looking as if she'd come to collect him for bed. An expression of concern graced her lovely face as she reached for him.

Everything in him burned with a desire to rush into her arms, to let her embrace him, cradle his head against her soft breasts and soothe away his tension and his fears. He needed her, she'd make it better.

He forced himself to take a step back from her.

"You're not real," he whispered, rubbing at his eyes.

'Need her, need her now. She'll make it better. Hermione. Hermione. Mine.'His traitorous mind raced with thoughts of her, of how he wanted and needed her.

"Draco?"

His mother's tearful voice momentarily broke through the voices in his head. He opened his eyes and looked around, exhaling slowly to see that he was once again alone in the room with his mother's portrait, and she was eyeing him with a look of maternal concern on her face.

"I am so sorry my darling. I should have told you. I had planned to tell you before you came of age and could be a victim of the curse, but then the war happened. No one was celebrating Yule, and I did not know if we'd even all survive for it to be a factor. I could not burden you with more, but I still should have told you after the war, before I... I know that now."

"Why didn't you? Why did you do it, Mother? Why did you leave me?" he asked, finally breaking down in anguished sobs as he slid down onto the floor in an ungraceful heap.

When he finally pulled himself together enough, he could hear the soothing sounds she made and her whispered apologies.

"It was the Mistletoe Legacy," she whispered.

"What?" He wiped his face on his sleeve, uncaring about the fine but rumpled dress shirt he wore.

"The Mistletoe Legacy. It affected me too."

"No… you weren't… you weren't _mad_, mother." Even as he said it, he knew it was untrue. Narcissa Black Malfoy had not been sane in her final months.

"I thought I could defeat the curse," she said softly. "I thought I could beat it. Bella… she ended up under the mistletoe with a much older wizard, you came to know him as the Dark Lord. Father had already arranged her marriage to Rodolphus Lestrange, and they wed within weeks. The Black family's traditional marital binding is for life."

"Are you saying that Bellatrix Lestrange was driven mad by mistletoe?" he asked incredulously. He had trouble wrapping his mind around the idea that one little sprig of a plant was enough to result in the sadism and insanity he witnessed in his mercifully deceased aunt.

"Bella was always… high-strung and spirited, and yes, drawn to the dark arts. But she was not crazy, my darling. Not then. She was trapped by the mistletoe at a party held by one of the Dolohovs, and she kissed the Dark Lord, who at the time was admittedly rather captivating. I knew she had found him attractive before - she had confided that much in me - but the mistletoe awoke the curse, and a teenage girl's innocent attraction became an obsession."

"Did you beat the curse? Obviously you must have, for you were never insane like Bellatrix was."

A sad smile crossed her face. "In a sense, I suppose, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Attempts were made over the years to undo the curse, but to the best of my knowledge no one ever succeeded. However, the Black family learned over the years that a ritual marriage binding to the object of one's obsession could hold the madness at bay. It was a cure, of sorts. Bellatrix...she tried to stop the wedding to Rodolphus, but our father refused to allow her to bring shame to the family by breaking a betrothal."

"He preferred to let her go insane?"

Narcissa's mouth twisted and a dark look crossed her face. "Pureblood families don't exactly place a great deal of value on daughters, my dragon. Father was not about to lose the dowry he'd invested in Bellatrix. She could go insane for all he cared, so long as she wed Rodolphus. The curse made her sadistic. It brought out her worst impulses, the worst bits of her and twisted them until they were horrific. The years in Azkaban only made it worse. I had hoped when the Dark Lord broke her free from that horrible place that his proximity to her would soothe her mind, but it did not. She was still bound to Rodolphus, and even had she not been, the Dark Lord did not seem inclined to trouble himself with mundane things such as marriage. Perhaps if she'd been able to avoid Azkaban, if the Dark Lord had not fallen in 1981, if she'd been able to stay in close proximity to him, it would have been enough to keep the worst of the curse at bay, but we'll never know."

Draco swallowed hard. Bellatrix had gone to Azkaban when he was still a toddler, so he'd not known her until she emerged from prison, and he was thrilled every time he was able to escape her presence and return to the relative safety of school. She'd terrified him. He still had nightmares from the war, from the things she'd done in his presence, including the way she'd tortured _his_ Hermione.

Was that his fate? To turn into some deranged and insane version of himself, acting on his worst impulses and destroying everyone around him? Death seemed preferable to ending up as Bellatrix had before that Weasley broad did the world a favour and ended her.

"And you? How did you try to escape the curse?" he asked hoarsely.

"I...I attempted to circumvent it. Father had negotiated a betrothal contract for me with your father. Lucius was…" her voice trailed off, and she wiped away a painted tear. "Lucius was handsome and charming and charismatic, and he_ liked_ me. He was pleased with the betrothal, and I was very happy to marry him."

Draco knew his parents' marriage had been arranged, but he supposed it was nice to know that they'd wanted each other from the start.

"My family was fanatical about banning mistletoe from our home, and I was warned by my parents to avoid it at all costs. I could not take the risk though that I might be caught by it at a party somewhere as Bella had been. If I could not rid myself of the curse, the only way I could see around it was to deliberately activate it, with your father."

Draco sucked in a breath of surprise.

"You did it on purpose?"

"I did not want Lucius to know of the curse before we wed, for fear that he'd find some way to leave me. Nor could I risk becoming obsessed with anyone else when father would never have permitted me to break a betrothal to the Malfoy heir. I came of age shortly before the Yule holiday. Your father had graduated already, but I asked him to meet me in Hogsmeade. I maneuvered him to mistletoe I'd placed myself and made sure we were stuck there. He kissed me, and I knew… I knew then I would never have to worry about going mad as Bella did because we would bind ourselves together as soon as I finished school, and we'd be very happy."

Draco ignored the painting's soft cries. "Sure, until he ended up kissing a dementor and you ended up with your brains smeared on the courtyard flagstones."

"Do not speak disrespectfully of your father!" she said harshly, pointing a manicured finger at him.

"He followed a madman, nearly got us all killed, and ended up a soulless husk of a person, locked away somewhere until his body eventually wastes away from old age or infection, mother. I am not 'disrespecting' anyone by pointing out harsh truths. You though - you CHOSE this. You CHOSE to end your life!" he hissed.

She shook her head vehemently. "It was the curse! I couldn't… Lucius was _taken_ from me! After they did that to him, after they sucked the life from his body, after they took away the best parts of him, the parts of him that were MINE, there was nothing left. He was there… but not. I was bound by magic's curse to his soul, and his soul was gone. I couldn't bear it, my darling. I couldn't bear to live without him. Each day without him was torture! I could see him, hear his voice, sense him everywhere and nowhere. He was my obsession, my madness, my life. While he was hale and whole and bound to me, the curse was kept at bay, but once he was gone, he took my mind with him. I regret that my actions hurt you, my darling, but I cannot regret what I did. Living without him was not an option."

She bowed her head, ashamed to look upon the son she'd abandoned for death's sweet embrace.

Draco paced across the room on shaky legs and found a bottle of wine he could uncork with a wave of his wand. He drank straight from the bottle, not bothering with a glass.

His mother's painting appeared to remember herself then, and she straightened her hair and clothes and wiped her eyes.

"You must tell me: how did you first hear of the Mistletoe Legacy? Did my father's painting tell you? Oh darling, I hope you didn't hear of it from that hag Calpurnia. She surely wouldn't have presented it in the kindest light."

Whispers from the mansion's host of painted ancestors swam in his head: _the Black family madness. The curse. Mistletoe. The Legacy. It's happened again. Who is she? Madness. Obsession. Curse. The curse. Mistletoe._

He was fairly certain he'd told his mother which painting had set this in motion, but the cacophony of painted whispers in his head wouldn't stop. Were there any Blacks hanging in that hallway? The details were blurred in his mind. He blinked and for a brief second, he thought he saw Hermione leaning against the doorframe in her green negligee.

"Come to bed, darling," she implored, a slight smile on her pink lips as she extended a hand toward him.

"I don't recall," he said to his mother with a shake of his head. When he looked at the doorway again, Hermione was gone, and he had to fight a building desire to seek her out, for surely she was still in the manor somewhere...

"I am so sorry, my darling, so sorry that I failed to tell you of this before. I ensured we never had mistletoe in the house. Your father was far too possessive of me to ever risk someone else kissing me, even though we were bonded for life."

Draco snorted, for it was hardly a secret that Malfoy men were notoriously possessive of that which they held dear.

"Did he know of the curse? My father?"

"I did tell him, once we were wed. He was… angry, at first, but he agreed that my method of circumventing the curse was for the best."

Draco had a feeling she was glossing over a lot. He couldn't imagine Lucius being happy about the curse or his wife's subterfuge, particularly given that his future heirs would be affected by it. Knowing his parents as he did, he had a feeling they'd engaged in epic screaming matches over the issue, which would then explain how some of the Malfoy portraits knew of a curse the Black family kept secret.

"The curse has come for you then, hasn't it?" she whispered.

"Do you think I'd be here asking these questions if it hadn't?" he snarled.

"Who is she, the witch who has possessed your mind?"

He stared up at her for a moment, curious about her reaction.

"Hermione Fucking Granger, mother. The Golden Girl of Gryffindor. So much for _toujours pur_, right?" he said with a bitter laugh.

"Granger? The… the _mudblood_?"

"One and the same." He raised the wine bottle to her in a mocking salute. "Thanks to this stupid fucking curse, my options are apparently to go insane or take the cheap way out like you did and kill myself."

Narcissa's face crumpled at his words. "No! No, you cannot! Draco, my darling, you cannot take your life! What will happen to the Malfoy line? To the Black line?"

"You'd rather I pass this legacy to another generation?"

"You can bind yourself to the girl."

He stared at her for a long moment. "I am quite sure the curse has taken over my mind already because I could swear that Narcissa Black Malfoy just told me to marry a mudblood."

"It is… far from ideal," she admitted with a grimace. "But needs must, and I am sure if your father was here as well, he would agree with me. The next generation of Malfoys being half-blood is better than the line dying out altogether. You can use the curse as I did with your own children, to steer them to proper pureblood matches."

He momentarily set aside the idea of arranged marriages for his non-existent future children.

"You're missing one crucial factor, Mother."

She raised a perfectly painted eyebrow at him.

"Hermione Granger _hates_ me. She'd rather die than bind herself to me in marriage."

To his surprise, Narcissa merely smirked.

"Oh my darling boy - with the Black family's traditional binding ceremony, she doesn't have to be _willing_."


	7. Chapter 7: Decisions

A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. I love seeing your reactions to the curse and the reason for Draco's madness! Chapter 7 was originally much longer, but I decided to split it in two – you will get Chapter 8 on Friday/Saturday. As always, I welcome your feedback.

Cheers,  
Elle

Chapter 7: Decisions

His mother's words echoed in his head long after he stumbled half-drunk to the manor library.

_She doesn't have to be willing. She doesn't have to be willing._

He awoke the next morning with a hangover, drooling on an old journal from the Black family. He had vague memories of researching the family archives that had passed from Cygnus and Drusilla Black to his mother, and then passing out sometime during the night.

He called an elf to bring him a hangover potion and a pepper up potion before he resumed his research. There were a handful of journals kept by various ancestors who'd been subjected to the Mistletoe Legacy and had difficulty securing a match with the object of their obsession. As he turned the pages, he could see the clear progression from sanity to madness: elegant and precise script that became sloppy, written rantings about visions and hallucinations, documented instances of hearing voices when no one was there, increasing levels of confusion and mental chaos. A wizard wrote about his desire to murder a witch's family when her father initially rejected a betrothal offer. One witch wrote about her brother killing himself because the witch he desired was already happily married. There were stories of impulsive behavior, of gambling and vice, of fortunes that were squandered by wizards and witches in the throes of a madness that could not be cured. There were gruesome tales of kidnapping and even murder as cursed Blacks did whatever it took to obtain the object of their affection.

In journal after journal, the Black family's history of madness was laid bare to him. His entire life, he'd heard furtive whispers about the Black madness. He had vague childhood memories of snippets of conversations overheard when visiting his grandparents in London. There were stories passed around in the Slytherin common room as well. As a student he'd come to realise that the deference shown to him by older students in Slytherin was because of his status as both a Malfoy _and_ a Black. He was feared and respected because of it. He'd always assumed that the rumoured madness came from exposure to the wrong sort of dark magic, or some sort of potions experiment gone wrong, or even just plain old abusive parenting. The Blacks, after all, weren't known for being particularly warm or nurturing.

But all of it - the insanity, the confusion, the hallucinations, the single-minded obsession he'd experienced and witnessed in some of his own relatives - was due to mistletoe. "The mistletoe madness," one ancestor termed it.

He raged at what he'd learned. He threw books and journals across the library, toppled chairs, and even shoved at a heavy rack of old potions texts until the whole thing tipped over. All this time, members of his family had known of the curse, and no one said a thing to him. All this time, journals documenting his ancestors' descent into madness were carefully tucked away on a shelf in the Malfoy library, and no one bothered to tell him.

And now there was no one left.

The Black family was larger back then, when these journals were written, and there were sane family members available to document what happened to their loved ones. In more than one journal, he'd reached the end of the written pages to see a postscript applied by someone else, stating that the wizard or witch in question had committed suicide. Who would tell his story? Who would write the rest of his life when he was driven mad? He was the last of the Malfoys, the last of the Blacks from a descendant who'd not been struck from the family tapestry.

Sure, there was his mother's estranged sister, the one who'd been cast out for marrying a mudblood, but she hardly counted. Had Andromeda Black pursued her mudblood because of the curse? It would have been just like the Blacks to pass down a horrible curse and then disown one of their own because she chose sanity over a more suitable match. And now here he was, cursed to obsess over a mudblood until he lost his mind or killed himself, whichever came first.

Draco turned around in a circle, eyeing the library's contents: a priceless collection of books, rare scrolls, and artefacts. What would happen to these things, this knowledge the Malfoys had spent generations curating? What would happen to the contents of their vaults, the treasures collected over generations?

_She doesn't have to be willing._

His mother's voice echoed in his head again, a reminder that he was a Malfoy, and he could take what he wanted.

Still, it was one thing to grope Hermione beneath the mistletoe or even at a Ministry gala. It was quite another to force her into a marital binding. He was fairly certain doing so would be akin to purchasing a one-way ticket to Azkaban after Hermione sicced Potter on him. He didn't want to go mad - his experience with hallucinations since the kiss under the mistletoe was bad enough as it was - but he also didn't fancy a dementor's kiss, life in prison, or an early grave. Was going mad on his own a better option than being sane but in prison for the rest of his life, with everything the Malfoy family owned going to Potter's mudblood sidekick?

He wasn't quite sure.

Then again, his mother had apparently managed to go for months between kissing Lucius under the mistletoe and marrying him. He didn't have to make any decisions straight away, did he? Waiting and avoiding rash action seemed like the most prudent option.

His mind made up, Draco used his wand to right the library and then tried to get on with his life.

~oOo~

Except that getting on with his life was easier said than done.

Hermione was _everywhere_.

He saw her in his study, curled up on the green Chesterfield sofa wearing one of his cashmere jumpers and a pair of skintight muggle trousers. She was reading a book but would occasionally grace him with a seductive smile as he tried to work.

He saw her in his bathtub, her hair piled up in curls on top of her head, eyes closed, body hidden by water and fragrant bubbles.

He saw her in his gardens, wandering through the hedges, tossing little bits of grain and berries to Lucius's precious albino peacocks. She caught him staring out the window and waved at him before turning her attention back to the birds.

It was one thing to have these hyper-realistic visions of her - he hated thinking of them as hallucinations - in the privacy of his family's ancestral home. He could watch her in peace until she disappeared. Sometimes he could even carry on entire conversations with her, and on even rarer occasions, he could actually touch her before she disappeared.

It was quite another thing though to have these visions of her out in the world. He saw her lurking in the background when he visited apothecaries and potions labs with which the Malfoy family did business. He saw her sipping butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks when he went to Hogsmeade for a meeting. He saw her thumbing through the latest in a series of wizarding adventure books in Flourish & Blotts, and on a separate day he saw her strolling idly down Diagon Alley, enjoying an unseasonably warm day as she did her holiday shopping.

He was certain she was not real when he saw her wander into a private meeting he had at Gringotts Bank, as no one else acknowledged her presence, and there was no reason for the real Hermione Granger to be there in a goblin's private office. He was also fairly certain the goblins thought something was seriously wrong with him when he'd trailed off mid-sentence to watch her lean against the wall and rub two Galleons together as she smirked at him.

He thought the odds were against her being real when he saw her in Hogsmeade. To the best of his knowledge, Granger didn't do any field work, and as it was a Tuesday afternoon, the real Hermione was likely tucked into some dusty corner of the Ministry archives.

But elsewhere? He was disturbed to realise that he had no way of knowing whether or not he was looking at the real Hermione or a figment of his imagination.

Every time he saw her, voices in his heard urged him to take her, to make her his.

And it only got worse the longer he resisted.

As Christmas drew near, Draco was a shaky mess as he sat alone in his dining room, picking at whatever it was the elves had put in front of him. His appetite had waned in the last few days, and he'd barely slept in a week. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Hermione - his Hermione - but each dream was a nightmare.

In his sleep, he saw her tortured by his aunt, he saw her gang-raped by masked Death Eaters in the ruins of Hogwarts as she screamed for help, or he saw her sliced open and carved up by his own father. As horrific as those dreams were, they pierced him in a totally different way from the more seemingly benign dreams in which he saw her fucked by Potter and Weasley both. He saw her in different dreams, married to each man, her slender body swollen with child. He saw her with Potter as he treated her like a dirty secret, hiding her from his She-Weasel wife. He saw her with Weasley, living in poverty as multiple grubby, red-haired children tugged at her robes. Dream Hermione had turned to him then, crying, and asked, "Why didn't you come for me, Draco?"

That last awful dream stuck with him. He could offer Hermione so much more than the Weasel. True, his reputation wasn't the best, but people still revered and feared the Malfoy name. He'd managed to rebuild a significant amount of the fortune the family lost during the war, and with her by his side, they would be unstoppable. She'd never have to wallow in poverty with him, never be trapped with a dozen children she couldn't afford and didn't want. He could even offer her more than Harry bloody fucking Potter. He could offer Hermione wealth, privilege, influence of a different sort, and the coveted respectability that came with being the wife of a pureblood patriarch.

The dreams, the lack of sleep, the rapidly encroaching madness wrought by mistletoe was all wearing down his resolve.

His mother had said she didn't have to be willing for the Black family's ancient marital binding, but would she truly be all _that_ unwilling?

She had kissed him back that night under the mistletoe. She had kissed him back that night at the Minister's gala. She clearly desired him, even though she was not fully comfortable admitting to it. She'd said as much when she came to him in the manor after the gala.

And even if she was unwilling, would it really matter? If she was well and truly stuck with him, then he'd have a lifetime for her to eventually come around.

Unable to sleep and barely able to eat, he buried himself in the library, reading all he could find on the Ministry's laws related to marriage and family. It was true that he had no legal training, beyond the basics needed to manage his family's businesses, but from what he could tell, the Ministry was loathe to involve itself overmuch in the private business of the sacred families. It was better than he could have hoped.

_Oh my darling boy, she doesn't have to be willing._

He could hear his mother's voice in his head again.

"Tippy!" he called for his personal elf.

"Master called Tippy?" the little creature asked as it popped into the library.

"I need you to help me find everything you can on the Black family's marital binding."

"Master is the last heir to the Malfoy family. Master must use the Malfoy ritual to take a wife. Tippy will bring you the Grimoire."

"No. The BLACK family. I don't give a flying fuck what my father or grandfather or anyone else did. I need the Black family's ritual."

The elf looked uncertain but did as he was told.

Sometime before dawn, he found the information he needed.

Draco rubbed his eyes and read and re-read the details of the ritual. Everyone had a breaking point, and he had reached his. The ritual was not overly complex but it would take several days to prepare.

He needed to start right away.


	8. Chapter 8: Actions

A/N: Thank you for the feedback on the last two chapters. I've enjoyed reading your thoughts on Draco's curse. I was a little unsure how people would respond to this story because he's such a jerk in the first chapter, but I've been pleasantly surprised by the number of readers who have come to feel bad for him. As always, I welcome your feedback. Thank you for reading and following along!

Cheers,

Elle

Chapter 8: Actions

Draco decided that Christmas Eve would be the ideal day to begin the binding ritual, with the conclusion coming on Christmas Day. It seemed fitting, somehow, that their union be merged with the holiday, given the way mistletoe had brought them together. He temporarily shuttered all of his business efforts and instead worked tirelessly for days leading up to December 24th to prepare the ritual space and the needed elements.

Oddly enough, once the decision to bind himself to Hermione was made, he stopped seeing her. He'd half-expected her to appear at his side as he brewed the necessary potion, adding her commentary on his brewing skills in her swottiest voice. He was certain she'd appear in the woods on Malfoy Manor's expansive grounds to flirt with him as he sought out a few precious plants he needed. Her absence was surprisingly bothersome. He'd once thought that the visions disappearing would be a blessing, but now it was a curse of its own. He missed her, to the point that it caused a deep ache in his chest. He consoled himself with the knowledge that it was only a matter of time before she would be with him forever.

The night of Christmas Eve was clear and cold. Hermione went out for dinner with Potter. Draco knew this because he followed them to the restaurant, seething the whole time at the sight of Potter's hand on her lower back over her muggle coat. Potter looked… sad, or at least a bit melancholy, and that made Draco happy.

As they left the restaurant, he listened under the relative safety of a disillusionment charm as Hermione promised to be at the Burrow the next night for Christmas dinner. Potter offered to walk her home, and to Draco's annoyance, she accepted. It was rather stupid of them, he thought, to take the muggle way back, when they both could have easily apparated. He chose apparition, and he was thankful for that as additional wards had been added to the protection around her flat. So then, his brilliant little witch had noticed the destroyed photo and taken precautions.

The new warding was impressive, and just as Draco was beginning to panic that he would not be able to unravel them all, the last one finally broke. He barely managed to get into her home, reset the wards, and disillusion himself before she returned with the scar-headed wanker who just wouldn't die. He listened from a corner of the flat, carefully disillusioned.

"Do you want me to come in and check things out? Make sure everything's okay?" he could hear Potter ask from the doorway.

"Don't be silly - the wards were intact when we arrived. If someone had broken through them or even attempted it, I'd know it," she responded.

Draco smirked to himself.

"You sure you're okay?" He sounded concerned. "You know you're always welcome to stay at Grimmauld Place with us."

"I know, and I appreciate it, but I sleep better in my own home. Besides, I've taken up enough of your Christmas Eve. I'm sure Ginny is waiting for you."

"Yeah. She is. Thank you for meeting me for dinner. I know it's a silly tradition to keep but-"

"It's not silly. Christmas Eve has had a special meaning for you since the war, and I'm honoured that you want to spend it with me."

Draco had to suppress a growl at the idea of Potter sharing anything with 'special meaning.'

"I know I was in a tiff about it last year, but I'm actually glad we switched to dinner. Beats shivering in a cemetery," Potter said in a sheepish voice.

Draco couldn't help but wonder what they meant.

"It's okay to start new traditions, Harry. Besides, somehow I think your parents would not be pleased at the thought of you spending Christmas Eve at their grave."

Ah, so it was about Potter's parents then. Well, that somehow made Draco feel better to know this was about Potter's mummy and daddy issues and not about some illicit affair with Hermione, but he couldn't help but feel Potter's _wife_ was surely better suited to this morbid Christmas Eve tradition, whatever it was.

"I know." Potter sounded sheepish.

"You know, it would even be okay to let Ginny be part of this next year. She'll worry less."

Potter grumbled under his breath and Draco silently smiled at his sweet witch for the way she gently brought Potter's wife back into the conversation.

"Are you sure you don't want me to come inside and cast some monitoring charms? I know - you said it was invasive, but then we'd know the next time someone broke in here and would have a much better chance of catching whoever broke in before."

Draco frowned at Potter's suggestion. Monitoring charms would certainly be problematic, and in his haste to get through the extra warding, he'd not even considered the possibility that Potter would put on his Auror cap and cast additional charms inside the flat.

"I appreciate your concern, I truly do, but we don't even know that someone was actually here."

"Hermione! The photo-"

"Was turned to ash, I know. But I've got several rare first edition texts here that are rather valuable. I have some jewelry. Hell, I even had a stack of Euros and my chequebook lying out, but no one touched any of that."

Draco tried to recall if he'd seen any muggle currency the last time he'd been in Hermione's home. He'd honestly been too distracted to care about such things.

"Logically speaking," Hermione continued to lecture, "it makes no sense for someone to break into my home just to destroy a photo. It's far more likely that I was careless using magic in the kitchen, trying again to get the liquidiser and mixer to work with magic, and something miscast and hit the photo."

Draco was not sure whether he should thank Merlin she was such an absurdly logical witch, looking for the simplest possible explanation, or whether he should be concerned about her lack of self-preservation skills.

Potter ran his fingers through his perpetually messy hair and looked doubtful. "You've been on edge for weeks now, and you were afraid-"

"Yes, and you added wards for me, and I'm grateful, but Harry, let's not make more of this than we should. I'm fine. It's fine. It's also Christmas Eve, and you should be at home with your wife. I'll reset the wards as soon as you leave, and I won't take them down unless it's you, Ginny, or Ron at the door or the floo."

"I'll be going then. Listen, send a patronus if you need anything, for any reason, and I'll be straight over, okay?"

"I will. I'm _fine_, Harry. Have a wonderful night, and I will see you tomorrow night at the Burrow. I promise."

"Okay then. Happy Christmas, Hermione."

"Happy Christmas, Harry."

Draco struggled to stay still and silent as he watched Hermione hug Potter before he left. He waited to hear the distant crack of apparition as Potter popped away.

And then at last, they were alone.

He watched as Hermione reset the wards on her flat and locked the doors. He had to resist the urge to grab her right then, but forced himself to be patient. She was likely still carrying her wand, and a duel would certainly alert the neighbors.

It was fascinating to be in the flat with her, watching her every move, seeing her behaviour when no one else was around. She toed off her shoes - muggle sneakers - and hung up her coat, humming under her breath as she then poured a small glass of wine. She sipped her wine as she used her wand to non-verbally light a fire in the fireplace before curling up in her arm chair with a muggle book about a Christmas carol of some sort. She was so graceful, so beautiful, and so very close to being _his_.

At long last, she set the book aside and readied herself for bed. Draco's legs were starting to cramp from standing still for so long, and he was grateful when she wandered to the lavatory and then to her bedroom, giving him the freedom to stretch his legs and quietly move about the room.

He waited until she extinguished the lights in the flat, and then waited another fifteen minutes for good measure to allow her time to settle into bed and for his eyes to adjust to the dark.

Then, with his steps magically silenced, he crossed the flat to her bedroom. She'd left the door open, unlocked, and unwarded, the poor naive little witch. Her vine wand was placed on her bedside table. He simply stood there for a moment, watching her, as his heart pounded furiously in his chest.

This was it. He would finally have her.

She must have sensed his presence then, as he could barely make out her eyes opening before she bolted upright in the bed.

"Who's there?!"

She dove for her wand then, but he had the advantage. Even so, he panicked at her movement and fired off a quick _petrificus totalis_, hitting her directly in the chest. It wasn't the spell he'd intended to use, but it served its purpose. He used his wand to light the room and was impressed to see that she'd managed to almost reach her wand.

The spell had frozen her body, but not her eyes. She blinked at him in what he assumed was a mixture of shock and fear as he squatted beside her bed to put himself at eye level with her.

"Hello darling," he breathed out in a reverent voice. "I am sorry about the _petrificus_. I assume you're not fond of petrification after what happened to you in second year. I'll release it momentarily for something more comfortable for you, I promise."

He reached out with a shaky hand and brushed a lock of hair out of her face, thrilled beyond belief that he was there and he was touching her. A wide smile crossed his face as he withdrew a tiny sprig of mistletoe from his robe pocket and placed it on her bedside table, a calling card of sorts for those who would surely come for her after Christmas.

"It's Christmas, my love, and I've come to take you home."

With a wave of his wand, he _stupefied_ her, watching as her body relaxed into a slump from its frozen state, and her eyes slid closed.

It was time to go.


	9. Chapter 9: A Christmas Ritual

A/N: Thank you to everyone who has stuck it out this far. I've thoroughly enjoyed reading all of your comments and feedback from the last chapter! Beta love to Tassana Burrfoot, who also caught some big errors with my spelling casting in this chapter and the previous one, proving that I might be better off as a muggle rather than a witch.

~oOo~

Chapter 9: A Christmas Ritual

He knew the exact moment she awoke. As he had in her flat, Draco remained nearby but disillusioned. He wanted to witness her reaction and savour every moment from the very second she regained consciousness.

He'd apparated directly from her flat, carrying her in his arms and leaving her wards intact. By the time Potter noticed she was missing, it would be too late.

Once at Malfoy Manor, he'd taken her to a small antechamber off this room where Kiva, one of his female elves, had prepared her. There was a ritual cleansing that had to take place, during which her body was annointed with oils traced onto her skin in runes for fidelity, fertility, obedience, and protection. Traditionally, the mothers of both the bride and the groom would have performed the cleansing, but that obviously hadn't been an option. Traditionally the bride was also conscious for the preparations, but in the interest of expediency, he'd not bothered to cast a _renervate_ on her. The elf had then dressed her in a ceremonial black robe. Other brides might have worn white as a symbol of virginity or purity, but Black brides always wore black. For a Black witch, wearing the colour was done in respect for the family name. For a witch marrying into the Black family, the colour was meant to signify the death of her old identity.

Kiva had then levitated Hermione's unconscious form into the ceremonial chamber. Like many ancient family seats, Malfoy Manor contained a sacred ritual space used only for ceremonies like these. In generations past, all rituals related to family - marriage, naming of children, and funerals - were held in private in spaces like these. The larger extended family and possibly members of the public would then be invited to congratulate or offer condolences to the family. Thanks to the filthy influence of mudbloods and their ignorance and disrespect of the old ways, a shameful number of pureblood families had abandoned their sacred spaces and private rituals.

The Malfoy ritual space was a circular stone room in the centre of the manor that reached all the way to the very top floor of the home. The ceiling was magically transparent to show the sky above, not unlike the ceiling in the Great Hall at Hogwarts. The magic was heavy here with centuries of sacred history, and he could feel it like a weight on him that reinforced the solemnity of the occasion and the action he was about to undertake.

He'd been required to magically cleanse and purify everything he brought into the space, including himself. Whilst Kiva was tending to his future wife, he'd undergone his own pre-wedding ritual and now stood just inside the main entry to the room, dressed only in a black ceremonial robe. Everything he needed was contained within the robe's voluminous pockets.

He'd painstakingly prepared the chamber, lighting all of the torches and candles and forming a pentagram on the stone floor. Anything could be used to create the pentagram, but according to the Black grimoire, elements representative of the couple or having great meaning to them were said to produce a stronger binding.

Draco had formed their pentagram from sprigs of mistletoe.

In the very center of it, he placed Hermione's vine wand.

And then he waited.

At long last, her eyes blinked open, and he watched with bated breath as she took in her surroundings. She looked utterly terrified, and feelings of concern and satisfaction warred within him at her distress. She stumbled to her feet and flung herself at the door, screaming for help as she banged on the solid oak. He couldn't resist a slight chuckle, and she whirled around at the sound.

"Who's there? Malfoy? Malfoy, let me go!"

She noticed her robe then, and he smirked as she frantically tugged at the fabric.

"Where are my clothes?! Malfoy, _please_! Let me go!"

It did not take her long to notice her wand on the stone floor. She was a smart witch, brilliant even. He was counting though on her being ignorant of the old ways, and he was not disappointed. Without thinking, she ran into the pentagram to grab her wand. She grasped it so tightly in her hand, her knuckles were white, a fierce expression on her face.

He couldn't help himself: Draco applauded her and laughed softly. She whirled around again, pointed her wand at the sound.

"_Hominem revelio!" _

He gave her a moment to see that her spell did absolutely nothing before he dropped his own disillusionment charm, startling her.

"_Stupefy!" _She cast again, and again, nothing happened.

He could see her begin to panic as he took a step toward her. And then another. He paused outside the pentagram as she cast again, this time a _petrificus totalus_ that also failed to work.

"Why won't it WORK?" she yelled in frustration.

He smiled at her then.

"You know, Lucius was adamant that mudbloods didn't belong at Hogwarts or in our world at all," he said as he walked slowly around the pentagram.

She turned to follow him, making sure she never had her back to him, her temporarily useless wand still pointed at him as her eyes darted frantically around the room, looking for a means of escape.

"But he felt strongly that IF you were to be here, it was vitally important that you learn the ancient ways, the traditions that strengthened our magic and protected our world," he continued. "Dumbledore, though, that doddering old fool, thought it better to waste everyone's time with classes on the muggle world."

"Learning about the muggle world is hardly a waste of time - if you-" she started to say before he cut her off with a wave of his wand and a nonverbal _silencio_. He enjoyed the way her eyes widened at the realisation that _he_ could do magic even as her own wand failed her.

"You will learn to quiet yourself when I am speaking," he hissed sharply at her, making her flinch at his tone. "As I was saying, Dumbledore insisted on allowing muggle culture to infest our world, leaving mudbloods and even some half-bloods ignorant of so much of our heritage. Now, would you like to know, then, what our education failed to teach you?"

She hesitated and then opened her mouth to speak. Nothing came out, so she nodded her head, motioning to her throat.

"No, I won't cancel the spell. Not yet. This, my dear, is the Malfoy family's ritual space," he said, gesturing grandly to the room around them. "I dare say you are surely the only mudblood to ever set foot in this room. You should be proud."

She glared at his casual use of the slur.

"This space is traditionally used for important family ceremonies, including the binding of a witch and a wizard in marriage."

Draco savoured the look of horror on her face. He wasn't especially skilled at lip-reading, but it didn't take an expert to understand Hermione's silent response of shock, revulsion, and rejection. Her apparent visual distaste bothered him immensely, but it did not matter.

"I see you understand our purpose here then. Smart girl. Each family has their own version of a marital binding. Interesting isn't it, that there's no one set ritual? Thanks to the influence of the muggle world, standardised Ministry ceremonies are now more common than family marital bindings, as if a few trite words on paper with no connection to family magic would produce the same strength of bond. It's a disgrace. They may have fallen from popularity, but you see, these family marital bindings predate the Ministry itself. They are considered sacred. _Unbreakable_."

She frantically motioned at her mouth, demanding his attention. He ignored her demand and continued to circle the pentagram. He was a predator, and she was his prey, and they both knew it.

"As the lone legitimate heir to both the Malfoy and Black families, I have my choice of rituals. We will bind ourselves using the Black ritual. You will be legendary, darling, the only mudblood to ever partake of a Black ritual. Not even my blood traitor aunt was able to use the full ritual when she married her mudblood, as she'd been cast from the family tree. They could say the words, go through the motions, but magic knows the difference."

Hermione shook her head vehemently and attempted to silently cast a spell at him with her wand.

He cast a quick disarming spell and cherished the look of despair on her face as her wand went sailing into his open hand. He placed it on the floor against the wall. She wouldn't need it.

"Now, to get to your question about why your wand failed to work: In the Black marital binding ritual, one of my elves dressed and prepared you and brought you here. You were magically cleansed, purified, and annointed with precious oils and dressed in a traditional Black robe and brought here. And then just one of us had to willingly come into the pentagram, and you my brilliant but uninformed little witch, did _exactly _that. Brava, darling!" He accented his words with mocking applause.

She stared at him in horror and then shook her head. She then did exactly as he'd predicted and attempted to leave the center of the pentagram, only to find herself trapped by invisible walls that pushed her back.

"Ah, ah, ah," he chided. "You're stuck there, at least until the ritual is finished. Do you like the mistletoe? I thought it was a nice touch myself, seeing how it set all of this in motion."

She shook her head again and frantically motioned at her throat.

He smiled at her. "Once one person steps inside, the binding ritual has begun, and you cannot cast a spell from inside the most sacred of spaces. My wand only works because I have not joined you yet."

He pointed his wand at her and silently canceled his spell, giving her back her voice. She gasped audibly, her hand going to her throat.

"Please, Malfoy, no! This is… this is madness! This is - you can't_ do_ this to me!"

He tossed his own wand aside and smirked at her. "Oh darling, you'll find that I very much can."

And then he stepped into the pentagram.

~oOo~

It was almost adorable, he thought, how she tried to run again, only to be blocked by magic's invisible barrier.

"Malfoy, please stop!" She held up a hand defensively, as if that would stop him.

He paused right in front of her and took a moment to enjoy the panic on her face. The power he held over her in that moment was exhilarating.

"I know I've told you before: my name is Draco. You _will _use my name, or I will punish you. This is not an ideal time to test my patience, darling."

"You hate me! You call me a mudblood! Why on earth would you ever want to _marry_ me? It makes no sense!"

He laughed then, a bitter laugh. "I promise: I will tell you all in due time. Let's just say that I cannot imagine living without you."

She looked confused for a moment then but then shook her head. "I won't agree to this. Whatever it is you plan to do - I won't agree to it! You can't force me into a binding! I may not know everything about whatever arcane pureblood marriage rituals exist, but I know I have to be willing, and I am NOT!"

He brushed a lock of hair away from her face, enjoying the way she jerked away from him. "Oh, that's where you are very wrong, and it is yet another area where Dumbledore left mudbloods like yourself pathetically ignorant. For the Black family binding, you don't have to be willing at all. You merely had to enter the pentagram of your own accord."

A look of sheer terror settled on her then and a feeling of power soared through him. He'd bested her. After years of coming in second to a know-it-all mudblood, he'd bested her, and now he could claim her.

He'd dallied long enough. She was not owed further explanation, and in any case, additional arguing would merely delay the inevitable.

"You can't DO this! You'll never get away with it! Harry will arrest you, and you'll end up in Azkaban!" she said frantically.

He ignored her rushed words and instead reached into the pocket of his robes to retrieve the two small phials of potion. Her voice trailed off as he uncorked the phial and downed the red liquid before tossing the glass aside. It shattered on the stone floor outside the pentagram.

"What was that? What did you just do? Mal-Draco? What is that potion?"

He merely smirked at her and attempted to move behind her, saying a silent word of thanks to whichever sadistic ancestor had thought to take precautions in the event of an unwilling bride. She tried to turn, not wanting her back to him.

"What are you doing?!"

He moved quickly, darting behind her and wrapping an arm around her body, pinning her arms down. The one downside of wands not working in the circle during the ritual was that he would have to physically overpower her for this part, but it wasn't as if she stood much of a chance against him.

She screamed and struggled in his embrace, attempting to stomp on his foot.

"Let go of me! Stop it! Now! HELP! Someone help me!" she yelled.

He nuzzled her hair and the side of her face from behind her, breathing in her scent and relishing the feeling of her body against his own. At last, she was so close, _so close_ to being his forever.

"There's no one here to save you, Hermione. Just you, me, and my house elves," he said before pressing a kiss to her temple.

"Harry-"

"Is at home with his wife, is he not? I find it most perplexing that you spent Christmas Eve dining with another witch's husband. We shall have to revisit that issue at a later date, dear one. Rest assured though, I heard your conversation with him, and I know he won't be looking for you again until tomorrow night at the earliest."

"Please-"

"Do you know how much I love to hear you beg?" he whispered into her hair as she struggled. To emphasise his point, Draco pressed his pelvis against her, letting her feel his rapidly hardening cock. As expected, his witch stilled in his hold.

He took advantage of her momentary pause in movement to withdraw the second phial of potion, uncork it, and shove it between her lips. He held her firmly against his chest as she fought him and attempted to escape the potion. The phial was clenched in her teeth as he forced her head back against his shoulder and made soothing noises near her ear and let gravity do the rest.

"I've taken mine, and now it's your turn. Be a good girl and swallow."

She shook her head and tried to spit, sending the phial crashing to the stone floor as a result. He slapped a hand over her mouth, holding her as still as possible, even as she dug her nails into any part of him she could reach and attempted to claw herself free.

"Swallow it, Hermione. It won't hurt you. If I wanted to hurt you, I could have done so dozens of times over long before this night." He could feel liquid on his palm as she tried to force the potion from her mouth. Two of his fingers stretched from her mouth down below her chin to stroke at her throat, encouraging a swallowing motion as he tipped her head back further.

"I visited your flat before tonight. Did you know that?" he whispered in her ear.

She stiffened in his hold.

"I watched you, outside your window. I saw you strip off your blouse. I learned your warding system and then dismantled it one by one."

A pained noise emanated from her throat in reaction to this revelation.

"You can learn so much about a person from their home, you know. Yours was so neat, so precise. You come across as such a prude in public, but I saw your drawer full of pretty knickers."

He stroked at her throat again as he spoke. "I even borrowed a pair before I came all over your bed."

She made a hiccoughing, sobbing sound behind his hand, and at last - _thank Merlin_ \- she swallowed.

Draco released her with a smirk as she coughed. He then caught her wrist when she whirled around and tried to hit him.

"What did you pour down my throat, you sick son of a bitch!" she spit back angrily at him as she furiously wiped at her mouth. She was clearly furious about the potion, as she'd not even mentioned what he'd just confessed to doing in her flat.

"Some couples partake of mead or wine from a sacred chalice as part of their binding. The Black family uses a potion. It won't hurt you."

"_What was in it_?" she hissed in a low voice that he frankly found to be more than a bit of a turn on.

"Family recipe. I'm afraid I can't divulge the exact contents just yet, but the base is a euphoria elixir. It also has elements of a calming draught and an aphrodisiac."

He smiled at the look of horror on her face. "Don't worry - it's nothing as gauche as amortentia. No, this is much more subtle, yet powerful."

Draco paused then as she digested this information. What he'd not admitted was that his potion contained a strengthening and stamina draught and that her potion contained a few choice ingredients designed to make her less… resistant. He didn't want to think just how many Black brides or grooms over the years had been less than willing, to the point that mead had been replaced with potions designed to ensure consummation.

"Please stop. Please… just stop this. Let me go. I… I won't cause a fuss. It's not too late to stop this and let me go," she begged. Her big brown eyes filled with tears that she stubbornly blinked back - his brave, brave little witch.

"I'm afraid it is too late. It was too late the moment you and I were trapped beneath the mistletoe," he admitted.

At the mention of mistletoe, her eyes darted to the sprigs of greenery that formed the pentagram around them. There was an unspoken question on her face, and he knew he'd answer it for her soon enough.

But not yet.

They were not finished here just yet.

He could feel his own potion work its way through his body, dark tendrils of magic unfurling in his blood, ancient whispers of the dark power of his ancestors. This was heady magic, and he felt almost drunk with it as he reached into his robe and withdrew the Black family athame. It was nearly as old as the family itself and had been passed down from generation to generation, important enough that it had even been included in the design of the family's coat of arms. The handle was engraved with runes, and the silver blade was magically charmed to never dull. Someday his great-great-great-grandchildren would bind themselves using this athame, and it would be just as sharp then as it was on this Christmas Eve night.

Draco took a steadying breath and then he used the ancient blade to make a small cut on the palm of his hand, ignoring the sharp burst of pain as blood welled in the cut and began to pool in his palm. Then, before she could stop him, he grabbed her palm and sliced through the sensitive skin, ignoring her shriek of pain as she tried to pull away from him.

He clasped their bleeding hands together, holding tightly to her, and chanted the sacred vow:

"I, Draco Lucius Malfoy, heir of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, bind thee, Hermione Jean Granger, to me in matrimony. In the spirit of the magic and in the blood that resides within me, I take thee to be my chosen one. I bind thee to my hand, my heart, my mind, and my spirit, to desire and possess thee, wholly and completely, without restraint, in this life and beyond."

If the potion had made him feel drunk, then the power of the vow and their blood mixing together in ritual magic was akin to flying. It was the rush of a freefall on a broom before pulling out in a feint a hair's breadth before crashing into the ground. It was the feel of his wand in his hand for the first time, at age 11 in Ollivanders, when the mere touch of his fingers on the hawthorn wood sent magic shooting through him and exploding out of the wand's tip in a massive windstorm that sent parchments and boxes flying. It was the energy and force of a thunderstorm complete with lightning strikes but all captured inside of him. He would never forget this moment, this feeling, and the look on her face.

A blast of magic, visible as sparkling, shimmering opalescent dust shot out from their joined hands and surrounded them both, churning and swirling about the ritual space. He watched in awe as it gathered and formed a writhing cloud above them before exploding and showering them both. He looked at Hermione then and saw how the physical manifestation of magic lingered on her skin, giving her a brilliant, ethereal glow.

He felt something lodge in his chest then, a spike, but not one of physical pain. He could sense her there, in his heart. Hermione. His wife. HIS. He could tell by her sharp gasp and the way she pressed her other palm to her chest that she could feel it too.

A slow smile stretched across his face. It was done.


	10. Chapter 10: A New Beginning

A/N: I'm so sorry for the delay. I had a perfect storm of illnesses hit my children and me in February/March, and then with the pandemic, I found myself trying to juggle work, graduate school, and getting two kids through virtual learning. We've come to the end of this story, although there may be a sequel (see end note), and I am so thankful to everyone for reading and commenting on my story.

WARNING: This chapter contains a description of non-consensual (potion/magic-induced) sexual activity. Reader discretion advised.

Chapter 10: A New Beginning

Hermione had a dazed look about her as the magic settled over them, her pupils dilated, and her lips parted in a breathless mix of surprise, awe, and perhaps a touch of horror. It was, he thought, the first time he'd ever seen her rendered speechless, and he rather liked it.

He had bound her to him by blood and by magic, using the Black family's ritual, athame, potion, and ancient vows. All that was left was to seal the binding by consummating the marriage. He knew that in all likelihood, Hermione was no longer a virgin, a fact he found both frustrating and distasteful, not to mention unfortunate, for his ancestors believed that a wizard created a more powerful tie by deflowering his virgin bride in the ritual pentagram. Still, he would take her for the first time here in the most sacred of spaces, where their magic lingered. He was uncertain whether the Black family's marital binding could be undone before it was sealed, but he could not have her use her prodigious brain or connections to try to find some way out of their union. He doubted they could even leave the pentagram without consummation. The sheer magic of that many sprigs of enchanted mistletoe…

Draco tucked the athame back into his robes and released her hand, silently noting that the injuries caused by the blade had already magically healed, leaving behind a faint silver scar as proof. He smiled at his new wife, a smile of genuine happiness for he was indeed well pleased by what had just transpired, and then he reached for her. He cupped her face in his hands and drew her close, whispering her name softly before he brushed his lips against hers.

Their first kiss as husband and wife.

It was delicate. Gentle. Sweet. A demonstration to her that he could be kind if he so desired, and if her behaviour warranted it.

He pulled back from her, just enough to look her in the eye. She still looked a bit spell-shocked, and he couldn't tell if it was her mind trying to process what had just happened or the potion serving its intended purpose. He wasn't about to question it though, for within seconds of ending their kiss, something sparked inside of him. It was an _incendio_ to his body, a fire bursting into full flame beneath a cauldron. Heat spread through him and consumed him with a burning, _aching_ need.

For her. All for her.

The ritual, the potions, the mistletoe's curse, all of it compelled him to take her, to feel her bare skin against his own, to push his body into hers, to possess her as a husband does a wife. He would not resist magic's call and demand.

He crushed his lips to hers, dominating her mouth with his tongue, as his fingers wound through her curls and the delicate material of her robe. He was vaguely aware as he pressed her body against his own that his actions had woken her from her daze and that her palm was pressed against his chest. He bit at her lips, relishing in her soft whimper, before he tugged sharply at her hair and wrenched her head back to gaze upon her.

She lacked the dopey haze that accompanied someone under the _imperius_ curse, and the look of fear on her face seemed genuine, but it was also somehow muted, something he assumed he had the potion to thank. With the little rational thought he had left, he figured that Hermione sans potion would likely be far less accommodating given her attempt to escape their binding ceremony.

"Please," she whispered, her fingers gripping his robe. "Please don't."

He tugged her hair again. "Shhh. This has to happen to seal the bond, and it needs to be here. We cannot leave until it is finished. Don't fight me, and I'll make it good for you, darling. I promise."

Then his lips were on her again - her forehead, her cheek, her jaw, and then down the slender column of her neck, making her shiver. His teeth nipped a path from her earlobe down to the juncture of neck and shoulder, where her robe hid her body from view. But no more. Now she was his and his alone.

Heat built within him and his hands shook as he unfastened the first obsidian clasp at the throat of her robe, then the second, and the third. Her skin was bared to him, and he was thrilled to discover that the magic that left such a beautiful opalescent sheen on her skin continued beneath her robes.

As was tradition, she wore nothing but the black robe, leaving no barrier to him as he revealed her body and cast the fabric to the floor. She stood before him, nude and quivering, held magic's hostage in the pentagram. He doubted he'd ever seen a witch more stunning than his wife. She was petite, smaller than he'd thought her based on her wild hair and baggy clothes. Even the gown she'd worn at the Ministry's Christmas gala had only hinted at the perfection of her form. Defined collar bones. Pert breasts that were more than a handful, just as he liked them, and pink nipples that begged to be suckled and teased. Narrow waist and gracefully curved hips. A tummy that had just a hint of youthful roundness to it. Neatly trimmed curls at the apex of her thighs, just as he preferred. Slender arms and legs with the perfect amount of muscle tone and definition. Even her small feet were attractive to him.

"You're so beautiful. So perfect," he murmured to her, brushing his fingertips gently up her bare arms.

Magic's fire lapped at his insides, urging him to take what he wanted, what was his by right.

His hands cupped her delicious breasts and pinched at her nipples, delighting in the way her nipples hardened under his touch. She squirmed and whimpered when he bent to take her nipple into his mouth, using lips, tongue, and teeth to tease and torment. He groaned against her breast when he felt her hands in his hair, tugging, pulling at him.

His hands were everywhere - curling around her ribcage, trailing up and down the path of her spine, squeezing handfuls of curvaceous arse that made him think about bending her over the desk in his study and fucking her from behind as he spanked her. He tucked that thought away for another day. In the here and now, he couldn't stop touching her. He couldn't get enough of her. He wanted to lay her out on a large bed draped in rich silks and satins and explore every bit of her until he knew her body as intimately as he knew his own. He wanted to imprint himself on her, body and soul, to possess her, devour her, consume her.

He could bear to lift only one hand from her body to unfasten and discard his own ceremonial robe to stand nude before her, his cock thick, heavy, and weeping. He took her hand and placed her warm palm on his chest over his heart.

"You've been inside my head for weeks, and now I can feel you here," he said softly, hoping that she understood the all-encompassing nature of their bond, that despite her lack of knowledge of the old ways and ancient rituals that she somehow understood that he carried her in his heart and valued her above all other magical beings. However reticent she might have been about their binding, she had saved him, and she would forever mean the world to him.

Her hand trembled beneath his, and he thought she might cry.

"Draco… _please_…" she whispered, her voice shaky.

He cupped her face to kiss her again. "Shh. Let me take care of you."

He placed his hands on her shoulders, brushing her soft curls aside and applied enough pressure to make her kneel. For a fleeting moment, he stood above her, her lovely face level with his cock and her eyes wide with apprehension and perhaps even fear. He'd fantasised so many times over the years about having those swotty lips wrapped around his cock, about thrusting deep until she gagged, but it would have to wait for another time. He quickly knelt with her on their discarded robes and advanced on her until he had her on her back, her curls fanning out on the soft fabric as he loomed over her.

Given Hermione's reluctance toward their bond, he knew he would have to fight the magic that urged him to take her hard and fast so that he could ensure his wife felt cherished and satisfied in the consummation of their marriage. He slipped a hand between her legs, reverently stroking the dark curls and heated skin. A smile stretched across his face as he pushed one and then two fingers into her.

"Oh darling, you are _so_ wet," he groaned into the crook of her neck. He did not know whether it was due to the potion and the ritual or the attention he had already paid her body, but it did not matter. He had proof of her desire on his fingers as he slid them in and out of her, his thumb seeking and then brushing small circles around her clitoris.

He'd been with other witches before - many witches, many times - and he knew his way around the female body. Within a few pleasurable seconds, her hips began to rock instinctively with the thrusting movement of his hand.

She whimpered in response, and he felt her fingernails dig into his back almost painfully. The idea that his little lioness of a wife had claws made him smirk.

"Come for me my, darling," he crooned softly to her as he continued to tease her with his fingers. Fire burned inside of him, and he needed her, needed her so badly, but he was determined to bring her pleasure first.

She tossed her head back and forth, curls splayed so prettily around her.

"Don't fight it," he murmured before nipping at her breast in a way that made her back arch. "Just let go."

At last she came on his fingers with a hoarse cry, her nails scraping his shoulders hard enough to draw blood. He wiped at one of the marks with his hand and stared at the droplets of blood on her fingertips, amazed at the strength of his little witch.

"You've marked me, my darling, in so many ways," he murmured to her. Then he rubbed his index and middle finger over her lips, forcing them into her mouth and smearing his blood and her own bodily fluids on her tongue.

She gagged momentarily and tried to wriggle away from him, and then he felt the pricks of pain as her teeth closed on his fingers. It hurt, but he wasn't about to admit it. She was like a wild Abraxan, and she needed to be broken. Instead of trying to withdraw his fingers, he left them there, allowing her to continue to bite down as he instead positioned himself between her thighs, wetting his cock on the damp folds of her pussy.

"I'd intended to take this as slowly as possible, but you seem determined to try my patience, dear wife." He emphasized his words by pressing the tip of his cock harder against her.

His words registered with her a split second before he pushed his entire length into her in one solid thrust. She released his fingers from her mouth as she shrieked.

Later, he would look with surprise at the indentations left from her perfectly straight teeth on his pure, pale skin. Later he would feel an ache in his hand. In this moment though, all he knew was pleasure as his cock was sheathed in her tight, wet cunt. He felt as if he'd waited an eternity for this moment, and he could not imagine anything ever feeling better than being inside of her.

The fire that burned inside him and urged him on still raged and swirled like an inferno, and Draco at last surrendered to it. Everything was somehow both a blur and yet crystal clear. The way her cunt gripped his cock, the hypnotic way her breasts heaved with each thrust into her body, the sharpness of her voice as she cried out wordlessly. The silky feel of her skin under his fingertips as he pulled her to him, wrapping around her shoulders so he could fuck her hard. These were all things that were burned into his memory in exquisite detail. She was perfection. She was everything he'd ever wanted. She was _his_.

The harshness of the stone beneath her back and his knees, the passage of time, the chill in the air in the ritual chamber, the words she mouthed on her lips - these were all unimportant details that blurred into nothingness.

She was his, and he was fire, and the flames would consume them both before he would ever let her go. The very walls of Malfoy Manor could have crumbled to ancient dust around them, and he would not have stopped the rhythmic slam of his hips and thrust of his cock as he lost himself in her. Every sexual encounter he'd had before this paled in comparison. It all washed away in a nameless haze of dissatisfaction because nothing and no one would ever compare to this.

Draco pressed his face into her neck, inhaling and memorising the scent of his wife.

"Perfect, you're so fucking perfect," he groaned into her ear. Her nails dug into his back again, and he decided he liked the mix of pain and pleasure. He'd always been the one to dole out pain during sex, but somehow this only added to the sheer _intensity_ of the experience, and it seemed only fitting that she could give as well as take.

He caught the strangled "please" she whispered, and he sped up his thrusts, reaching for her thigh and lifting it higher around his waist. He shifted the angle of his hips, and she arched her back and cried out again. Yes, there it was. A smirk played on his lips as he repeated the same movement over and over again. He'd found it, that one perfect spot inside of her that made every witch scream with pleasure. He reached between them and sought out her clit with his fingers, rubbing quickly as he fought to hold off his own climax.

"Are you going to come for me, my love? Come on, I want you to come all over my cock," he ground out, nipping at her ear lobe and then her throat as he fucked her with wild abandon.

At last he felt the telltale fluttering of her cunt pulsing around his cock as orgasm washed over her. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and she cried out, and he felt her nails dig into his arms. She was beautiful, exquisite even, in the throes of passion. He could not hold out any longer. He pushed into her as deep and far as he could go and then let himself fall. He came with a roar, filling her still-spasming cunt with his come.

It was perfection. Bliss. It was everything. _She_ was everything.

~oOo~

Draco collapsed against his wife, pressing his forehead into her shoulder as he took in several long, slow breaths to calm his racing heart. There was a fine sheen of perspiration on his heated skin, and as he gently traced his fingertips down the slender column of her throat and over her other shoulder, her skin felt damp to the touch as well. An overwhelming sense of relief washed over him at the knowledge that it was done. The bond was sealed, and she was his forever. He kept his eyes closed as he breathed in the scent of her, vanilla and spice filling his nose.

His cock softened, and he carefully rolled off of Hermione with a low groan, coming to rest on his back beside her. He opened his eyes to stare up at the magical ceiling. The night sky was clear, not a cloud to mar the image of twinkling stars. The Blacks had always named their children for stars, so he supposed it was only fitting that the stars had been the only witness to their binding and their coupling.

Hermione lay quietly beside him, her breathing ragged. Their first time together had been perhaps the most pleasurably intense experience of his life, and it was no wonder that she was overwhelmed. In the distance, he heard the chime of the ancient grandfather clock in the manor's great hall. Twelve low, melodic notes breached the stone walls of the ritual space, announcing the start of a new day.

Christmas Day.

It hit him that he'd taken care to plan every minute detail of the binding ceremony but had given little thought to how he would celebrate Christmas with his new wife. That lack of a proper plan was not exactly the sort of start he wanted to his marriage, but perhaps he could figure out a way to salvage the holiday. He had a fleeting thought that she would probably want a ring of some sort and he wondered if there were any in the manor, aside from the wedding ring his mother had worn.

Any further consideration for the holiday was set aside when Draco had the sudden and incredibly disturbing sensation of something _moving_ inside of his fingertips and toes, flowing upward like a trickle of water. It was such an odd and unique feeling that he lifted a hand toward his face, half expecting to see some visible sign of blood draining from his fingers, but he could see nothing amiss, aside from the bite marks his wife had left behind. The sensation moved up his legs and arms and was strange and foreign enough that it should have caused major alarm. Yet for some reason, he found himself unwilling or unable to leap up in search of his wand. His hand felt heavy, and he lowered it to the floor, as movement quickly became an impossible feat. A cooling sensation washed over him as the flow of that odd _something_ reached his chest and moved upward further still.

It filled his head, and he opened his mouth to gasp or scream but no sound came out. He felt as if he'd been submerged in water too long and had to struggle to breathe. He was going to drown, here on the stone floor, far from any water.

Was this it? Was this how he died? Was fate so cruel as to give him his Hermione and then wrench life from him in this sacred place?

Draco did not know how long it lasted, how long he lay paralysed on the stone floor, as that strange cooling, flowing sensation filled his body and then swirled and churned in his head.

And then in an instant, it was gone.

It just… stopped. Vanished without a trace.

Draco gulped in lungfuls of air, grateful he could still breathe and move. He pressed a shaky hand to his temple as he blinked in confusion.

It was clear.

For the first time in weeks, his head felt _clear_.

He blinked again, silently marveling at the sharpness of his mind. How dreadful the last weeks had been, the constant fog and confusion, the hallucinations, the voices in his head, the inability to tell reality from fantasy!

And her. The growing, writhing, all-encompassing obsession with _her_.

Hermione Granger.

A mudblood.

No, Hermione Malfoy.

_His wife._

He'd married her, bound her to him for the rest of their lives, and potentially beyond, if one believed in that sort of thing. She'd be unable to hurt him, unable to leave him. He'd sacrificed countless generations of sacred blood purity all for his sanity.

As he lay there on the stone floor, the stars twinkling down at him through the charmed ceiling, he thought it was a reasonable trade. His father would have been horrified, and no doubt endless paintings in this mausoleum of a home would object vociferously, but he'd done it. He'd beaten the curse.

The Mistletoe Legacy would not take his mind as it had so many others in the Black family.

It was well worth it.

He sucked in a long, deep breath and exhaled slowly, marveling in just how wonderful it felt to know that his mind was his own again. He rubbed a palm over his chest, noting that he could still feel the magical tie to Hermione. He wondered how many countless ancestors and relatives had felt this same sense of clarity and relief after their bindings.

It was a reminder to him that his wife lay naked beside him, and that as the magic of the ritual faded, so too would the warmth of the normally cold stone room. He turned his head toward her and frowned. She had rolled onto her side and curled into a ball, her back to him, shoulders trembling.

He sat up, wincing at the slight ache in his body from their consummation. Hermione startled when he put his hand on her upper arm and rolled her onto her back to face him. Her amber-brown eyes were damp, her cheeks were streaked with the remnants of tears, and she recoiled from his touch.

He stared down at naked witch. His _wife_. Now with the clarity of his mind restored, Draco had to admit to himself that it was surreal at best that he, Draco Malfoy, the product of generations of careful breeding and pure magical lineage, was now wedded for life to a mudblood.

"Don't touch me," she pushed out in a shaky breath, scooting away from him, and then startling when her hand brushed one of the sprigs of mistletoe.

.

He stood in silence and quickly redressed, fastening the black robe around his body as she hastily attempted to cover herself. He extended a hand to her, intending to pull her to her feet so she could dress.

Her eyes zoomed in on the silvery scar that marked his hand, and he could hear her shuddered breath as she looked down at her own palm.

"What have you done?" she whispered in horror.

"I did what had to be done," he said stiffly as he regarded his wife as she awkwardly covered herself and got up from the floor and slipped back into her own ritual robe.

Now, with the curse cleared from his mind, held at bay by their binding, he could look at her with more objectivity. It was true that she was no great beauty, not like his mother had been, but she was fit, and she had a pretty enough face. With a proper wardrobe, one appropriate for a Malfoy wife, she'd certainly be acceptable, especially if he could do something about her hair.

She wiped at her face, brushing away the remnants of tears, and he found himself annoyed at her panicked reaction to him and to their binding and consummation. He'd made her come - twice - and taken her in as the first mudblood to be bound by the sacred Black family's ritual. He remembered then what she'd been like in school - so eager to please, so desperate for acceptance. The thought flashed through his mind that she really should be more grateful that magic's curse had chosen_ her_ of all witches. How much more accepted into the magical world could one get than being tied to two most noble and ancient houses?

Redressed in the robe, she folded her arms around herself and glared at him.

"I _will _undo this," she said forcefully, although the effect was rather lessened by the shaking in her voice. "Whatever you've done here tonight, my god, Malfoy…" her voice trailed off as she looked at him and at the pentagram.

"Perhaps you misheard me before, but this is unbreakable. There is no undoing it, _darling_," he said, acid creeping into his voice at her rejection.

He would not let her go. The marriage, his sanity, his future, his plans, all of it was too important. He would not let the Malfoy line fade into obscurity as the Blacks had. He would not be remembered by the magical world as the insane and pathetic end to the once-grand Malfoy family.

It occurred to him then that in his madness, he'd not planned well for the immediate aftermath of his marriage to Hermione. Sure, there was the whole Christmas gift thing, but there was also the matter of his new wife looking like she wanted to murder him.

"You _raped_ me!" she hissed at him.

Her accusation cut at him in a way that made him feel most peculiar, but he dismissed it with a silent shake of his head.

"With a potion like that? No witch or wizard alive could have resisted it, but if you insist on telling anyone such sordid things, I'll be forced to admit that you came all over my fingers and my cock, love."

Her face reddened, and for a moment he thought she might cry again. He felt a twinge in his chest at the thought of making her cry. Before the mistletoe, before all of this, he'd had only debauched and cruel fantasies about her, if he thought of her at all, and now the idea of harming her seemed...wrong. Draco tucked that idea away to explore later.

"An ancient marital binding like ours is indeed unbreakable," he continued, "Especially now that it's been sealed through the consummation of the marriage. There is no going back. And I'm sure if you put your enormous mind to it, you'll discover that not even the Wizengamot would hold me in the wrong for our actions here tonight."

She shook her head at him, "No. You're wrong. You're a liar, Malfoy! You've always been a liar!"

"My name is Draco, and you'll address me as such because you're a Malfoy too now darling."

"You've gone mad," she said in a low voice as she backed away from him.

At that he laughed, a full-on belly laugh, something he'd rarely experienced in his short life. She was still eying him warily when he managed to compose himself.

"Oh Hermione, you have _no idea_ just how sane I really am at this moment."

Her eyes widened at this pronouncement, and a part of him relished the fear on her face, even as he felt that damned twinge in his chest again.

The magic of the ritual began to fade then, and he could see the otherworldly opalescent sheen of magic on her skin begin to dissipate. She noticed it as well, and he had to admire how quickly she put two and two together: if the magic was fading then so too was the magical barrier that held them both in the pentagram.

Hermione moved first, darting to the right with a quick step over the mistletoe as she ran for her wand. He was impressed with how fast she moved, but his legs were longer, and he was faster. She dove for her wand, and he tackled her as she did, both of them slamming onto the stone floor with painful groans.

She rolled onto her stomach and crawled toward the delicate vine wand as he winced at the sharp pain in his shoulder from their awkward landing. He forced himself to get up and move after her, reaching out to grab her robe.

"Let go of me!" she yelled, kicking back at him.

"Stop fighting me," he hissing, leaning away from her kick and struggling to hold onto her and she pushed forward, arm outstretched for her wand.

He scrambled forward, grabbing her wrist just as her fingertips grasped at her wand. She screamed as he pressed his body over hers, pinning her down.

"_Stupefy!_" she yelled, her fingers barely closing around the wand as she attempted to move it.

A burst of magic flew from its tip, hitting the stone wall and dissipating.

"_Petrificus totalus_!" she yelled again, struggling to get a better grip on the wand. The wand responded to her magic, but without the proper motions, magic channeled through it fired out haphazardly.

A burst of yellow exploded from the wand, hitting the floor and a row of mistletoe.

"Stop it!" he said through gritted teeth as he gripped her wrist. He lifted her hand and then slammed it down on the stone floor, making her cry out in pain as he dislodged the wand from her grip. His chest ached at her cry, and he felt bad for hurting her. He just needed her to be still and _listen_ to him.

"Let go of me!" She pushed back against him, trying to wriggle from his grasp. "HELP! Someone help me!"

"There's no one here, damn it! Just listen to me!" he hissed.

He rolled her onto her back, both of them panting from exertion as he held her wrists in his hands.

"Please, just give me my wand and let me go," she insisted, still wriggling in his grasp. "I'll just go. I won't hurt you. Just let me go."

A tear leaked from her eye and trailed down the side of her face, and he felt awful for that, which in and of itself was a strange experience.

"I… I can't do that, Hermione."

"Why? Why not? Why would you do this? I'm… you _hate_ me. I'm nothing, Malfoy. I'm a mudblood," she cried.

"Listen, just _listen_ to me. I promise it will all make sense," he insisted.

"_How_? How can this possibly make sense?"

He sucked in a deep breath, aware of just how important it was that he make her understand, that he make her see that when faced with no good choices, a life of madness was simply not an option.

Draco leaned over her to snatch her wand before she could attempt to grab for it again. Hermione froze in response, staring at him, waiting for a response, an action on his part. He then pushed himself up off of her and grabbed his own wand before turning to stare down at her.

"Give me my wand," she said in a low voice, and he had to admire her bravery in such a demand, given that she was still on the floor and he held both of their wands.

"I can't. Not yet. Not until you understand."

She seemed to realise he was not about to attack her and gingerly got back to her feet, wincing as she rubbed her right hand.

"Nothing you could possibly say would ever justify this."

Keeping an eye on her, Draco bent to pick up a sprig of mistletoe from the pentagram. Now that the ritual was complete, any magic on it had been rendered inert. He gazed down at it for a moment, silently marveling that such a tiny bit of plant had set all of this in motion, had cursed generations of Blacks, ultimately contributing to the family's downfall.

He would not allow the Malfoy family to fall as well. He may have had to take a mudblood as a wife to keep the curse at bay, but she was a war heroine, and one of the most brilliant witches he'd ever known. If he could win her over, make her see just what they stood to gain together, the rest of the wizarding world would never know what hit them.

"Let me tell you a story about the Black family. About their - now_ our_ \- legacy."

She was silent as she pulled the sprig of plant from her hair, her eyes going from him to it and back again.

He smirked at the very thought of what he could now accomplish with her by his side.

"It's called the Mistletoe Legacy..."

_~fin~_

A/N: And that's all she wrote! For now anyway.

I know the open ending will rub some of you the wrong way, but this was always the ending I had in mind for this story. He's married her, and she's now part of the mistletoe's legacy as well. I'm considering the possibility of a sequel that also explains some of Hermione's experience and interactions with Draco, Harry, and others leading up to this twisted Christmas wedding, as well as what happens to her and Draco now that they're married. If a companion/sequel interests you, let me know! I'm unsure about the timeline for such a project, but there's definitely more of their story to tell.

Thank you so much for your patience and for all of the comments and feedback along the way.


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